Synonyms of pokey

pokey

noun

ˈpō-kē 

slang

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

Synonyms & Similar Words

• jail
• prison
• penitentiary
• brig
• slammer
• lockup
• hoosegow
• jailhouse
• pen
• calaboose
• stockade
• bridewell
• hock
• cooler
• bastille
• clink
• coop
• guardroom
• nick
• big house
• cage
• jug
• stir
• tolbooth
• slam
• can
• joint
• cell
• dungeon
• tank
• quod
• hold
• bull pen
• ward
• hole
• guardhouse
• stalag
• gulag
• labor camp
• keep
• block
• glasshouse
• reformatory
• concentration camp
• oubliette
• work camp
• prison camp
• reform school
• hulk(s)
• training school

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• outside

Example Sentences

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