carceral

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 25, 2010 is: carceral • \KAHR-suh-rul\ • adjective : of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison Examples: Every time John walked by the old hospital he was haunted by the abandoned building’s imposing carceral towers and tiny windows. Did you know? Describing a painting of John Howard visiting a prison in 1787, Robert Hughes wrote that Howard was "the pioneer of English carceral reform" (Time Magazine, November 11, 1985). "Prison reform" might be the more common phrase, but the use of "carceral" was by no means unprecedented. Vladimir Nabokov, in his inimitable prose, described a prison scene in Invitation to a Beheading thusly: "The door opened, whining, rattling and groaning in keeping with all the rules of carceral counterpoint." An adjective borrowed directly from Late Latin, "carceral" appeared shortly after "incarcerate" ("to imprison"), which first showed up in English around the mid-1500s; they're both ultimately from "carcer," Latin for "prison." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.