This week’s theme
Words for prisons

This week’s words
bridewell
gulag
calaboose
panopticon
lob's pound

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(GOO-lahg)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The system of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
2. Any prison or forced labor camp, especially one for political prisoners.
3. A place of great hardship.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Russian Gulag, acronym from Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel’no-trudovykh LAGerei (Chief Administration for Corrective Labor Camps). Earliest documented use: 1946.

USAGE:

“Eritrea is ruled by a despot-for-life whose critics wind up dead or sweating in a gulag of shipping crates in the desert.”
How to Make Eritrea Less Horrible; The Economist (London, UK); Aug 4, 2018.

See more usage examples of gulag in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: