imprison

«imprison» in Mova's school dictionary: To put someone in prison or keep them locked up — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (imprison, imprisons, imprisoned, imprisoning)

meaning for a pupil

1) (law) To put someone in prison or keep them locked up. tree →

2) To trap or keep someone or something somewhere so they cannot leave. tree →

3) To keep something you value, such as your honour, shut away so that it cannot be used or freed. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history and law it describes people sent to prison for crimes, or unfairly for their beliefs. In stories villains imprison heroes in towers. In the Bible Paul and Peter were imprisoned. Phrases: be imprisoned for, imprisoned in, wrongly imprisoned.

examples

• The thief was imprisoned for three years. tree →
• The wicked queen imprisoned the princess in a tower. tree →
• In the Bible, Paul was imprisoned for preaching. tree →
• The bird felt imprisoned in its small cage. tree →
• Some people have been wrongly imprisoned. tree →
• The snow imprisoned us in the cabin for two days. tree →

note

Noun: imprisonment. Prefix im- here means «in», not «not». Similar: jail, lock up, detain. Opposite: release, free.

In the corpora

• Paul travelled across the Roman world starting churches, and was shipwrecked, beaten and imprisoned.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «imprison» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.