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    penitentiary

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    penitentiary
    pen‧i‧ten‧tia‧ry /ˌpenəˈtenʃəri, ˌpenɪˈtenʃəri/ noun (plural penitentiaries) [countable] American English
    a prison – used especially in the names of prisons:
        the North Carolina state penitentiary
         
    THESAURUS
       ▪ prison a large building where people are kept as a punishment for a crime or while they are waiting to go to court for their trial: He was sentenced to five years in prison. | Wandsworth Prison
       ▪ jail a prison, or a similar smaller building where prisoners are kept for a short time: This old building is the jail that Butch Cassidy escaped from in 1887. | He was taken to a cell in the Los Angeles County Jail. | 58% of prisoners are in jail for non-violent crimes. | The strikers were harassed, beaten and put in jail for trespassing. | Grover got caught for not paying his taxes and was sent to jail.
       ▪ gaol /dʒeɪl/ British English another way of spelling jail: He spent the night in gaol.
       ▪ penitentiary /ˌpenəˈtenʃəri, ˌpenɪˈtenʃəri/ American English a large prison for people who are guilty of serious crimes: the Ohio State Penitentiary | The murderer served 10 years at the penitentiary in Stillwater. | the abandoned federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island
       ▪ correctional facility American English formal an official word for a prison: 1,000 prisoners rioted at the North County Correctional Facility.
       ▪ detention centre British English, detention center American English a place where young people who have done something illegal are kept, because they are too young to go to prison. Also used about a place where people who have entered a country illegally are kept: Kevin, who had been abandoned by his mother, had been in and out of detention centres all his life. | a juvenile detention center | Harmondsworth detention centre, near Heathrow airport
       ▪ open prison British English a prison in which prisoners have more freedom than in an ordinary prison, usually because their crimes were less serious: In some open prisons, prisoners are allowed to go home at weekends.
       ▪ cell a small room in a prison or police station, where someone is kept as a punishment: a prison cell | Conditions were poor, and there were several prisoners to one cell.