big house
See also: bighouse
English
Alternative forms
- (religious building): bighouse
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
big house (plural big houses)
- (slang) Prison, jail.
- 1948 November 15, “The End of Bad Boy Collins”, in Time:
- He was 38 years old and had been in the big house twice for shooting scrapes.
- (slang, obsolete) The workhouse.
- A religious building of the Delaware Indians, representing the cosmos.
- Coordinate term: longhouse
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see big, house.
Usage notes
- In slang, always preceded by "the".