lockup house

lockup house (plural lockup houses)

1. (now historical) A small house where people are kept in temporary custody after arrest, especially where debtors are held before transfer to a debtors' prison. [from 18th c.]
   • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 143:

     He kept a lock-up house in Great Earle Street, Soho, and, although by profession a tailor, he had fitted it up most elegantly as a tavern.

2. (colloquial, obsolete) A lodging house where men are kept and forced to enlist in the army or navy. [18th c.]