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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

borstal.

A way up a hill in the South Downs.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun
  1. A way up a hill in the South Downs.

    UK
  2. Any of the prisons set up in Britain for delinquent boys from 1895 to 1983.

    historical
  3. Any institution which provides education to young offenders.

    Ireland · UK
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English *borstile, *borghstile, from Old English beorh (“a hill”) + stigel (“a stile”). The institutions are named after Borstal Prison in Borstal, Rochester, Kent, England.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.