big house

noun

Prison, jail.

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Meanings

nounbig house (plural big houses)

plural big houses · alternative bighouse

  1. slangPrison, jail.

    He was 38 years old and had been in the big house twice for shooting scrapes.

    1948 November 15, “The End of Bad Boy Collins”, in TIME, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2009
  2. obsoleteslangThe workhouse.
  3. A religious building of the Delaware Indians, representing the cosmos.
  4. A plantation house
  5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see big, house.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
bincalaboosejailprison
Cite this entry
APA

big house. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20house

MLA

“big house.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20house. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “big house,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20house.

Source: big house on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.