Meanings
plural hoosegows · alternative hoosgow · alternative hoosecow · alternative hooscow
- USslangA jail.
There's parts of Mexico they'd take you straight to the hoosegow for just whistlin that.
2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 4241 more example
Philip Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology department, divided the participants at random into ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards,’ and even got the Palo Alto police to arrest the prisoners and haul them to the campus hoosegow.
2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 674
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Spanishjuzgao
- Englishhoosegow
From informal spoken American Spanish juzgao, variant of standard Spanish juzgado (“court, courthouse”).
More words from Spanish
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
hoosegow. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoosegow
“hoosegow.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoosegow. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hoosegow,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoosegow.
Source: hoosegow on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.