as in jail
a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody
joked about the time he passed out on the street and woke up in the pokey
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Recent Examples of pokey
Both systems made the GeForce RTX 40 GPUs in the Dell and MSI systems look a little pokey by comparison (though those systems are definitely no slouches, in a bigger-picture sense).
—
PC Magazine,
12 May 2025
Put the reader on (watch out for the surprisingly pokey earpieces at the ends of the arms), and those displays merge into a single 271 ppi E Ink display.
—
Anthony Karcz,
Forbes.com,
7 May 2025
There are reasons people are afraid of the dentist; all of those pokey instruments going into soft, sensitive places.
—
Erin Qualey,
Vulture,
14 Feb. 2025
Thirty-three years since its founder began cutting up fabrics in a pokey South London flat, the house of McQueen’s headquarters now inhabit a six-story, 30,000-square-foot building in London’s Clerkenwell.
—
Hayley Maitland,
Vogue,
16 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for pokey
PC Magazine,
12 May 2025
Put the reader on (watch out for the surprisingly pokey earpieces at the ends of the arms), and those displays merge into a single 271 ppi E Ink display.
—
Anthony Karcz,
Forbes.com,
7 May 2025
There are reasons people are afraid of the dentist; all of those pokey instruments going into soft, sensitive places.
—
Erin Qualey,
Vulture,
14 Feb. 2025
Thirty-three years since its founder began cutting up fabrics in a pokey South London flat, the house of McQueen’s headquarters now inhabit a six-story, 30,000-square-foot building in London’s Clerkenwell.
—
Hayley Maitland,
Vogue,
16 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for pokey
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pokey
Noun
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The driver of the fleeing vehicle was booked into the Wyandotte County Detention Center, according to the jail’s inmate listing.
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Epstein served about 13 months in a Florida jail, and was often permitted to leave the jail on work release.
Noun
-
The pair, who were detained in March, had already spent four months in prison prior to the punishment, which ultimately reduced their sentence from 25 lashes to 21, the AP said.
-
Taylor, 30, now faces a potential sentence of life in prison.
Noun
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Two years ago, a judge freed Anthony Bailey after 27 years in the federal penitentiary, giving him a second chance at life.
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After a federal jury voted to convict him in early 2024, Hernández was sent to a notorious high-security penitentiary in West Virginia to serve his time.
Cite this Entry
“Pokey.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pokey. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.
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