jail

n. prison, location where convicted criminals and people awaiting trial are confined; incarceration, imprisonment

v. put in prison, incarcerate, jail, detain

Jail, or gaol (especially in Australia), or remand prison, is a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government. This includes either accused persons awaiting trial or for those who have been convicted of a crime and are serving a sentence of less than one year. Jails are generally small penitentiaries run by individual counties and cities, though some jails in larger communities may be as large and hold as many inmates as regular prisons. "Jail" is also a synonym for "prison" in some countries (excluding the United States), especially when the facility is of a similar size as a correctional facility. As with prisons, some jails have different wings for certain types of offenders, and have work programs for inmates who demonstrate good behavior.
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A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Prisons are conventionally institutions which form part of the criminal justice system of a country, such that imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime.
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Noun
1. a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence)
(synonym) jailhouse, gaol, clink, slammer
(hypernym) correctional institution
(hyponym) bastille
(derivation) imprison, incarcerate, lag, immure, put behind bars, jug, gaol, put away, remand
Verb
1. lock up or confine, in or as in a jail; "The suspects were imprisoned without trial"; "the murderer was incarcerated for the rest of his life"
(synonym) imprison, incarcerate, lag, immure, put behind bars, jug, gaol, put away, remand
(hypernym) confine, detain
(derivation) prison guard, jailer, jailor, gaoler, screw, turnkey
(classification) law, jurisprudence

(v. t.)
To imprison.
  

(n.)
A kind of prison; a building for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody, especially for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
  

A prison; a place appointed by law for the detention of prisoners.

In the past the terms jail and prison were used interchangably, but today 'jail' usually refers to local detention facilities where the criminally accused are initially taken to be processed, to await trial, and where short - usually less than one year - sentences for criminal misconduct can be served.