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Revision as of 02:45, 20 March 2007 by Coastered (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Gaol is an early Modern English spelling for jail, with the same pronunciation and meaning of a place of legal detention. Although currently spelt as jail in the United States and often elsewhere, gaol is still considered correct spelling in British, New Zealand and Australian English when talking about earlier buildings..
The Oxford English Dictionary states that gaol comes from the Norman French spelling gaiole down to the 17th century as gaile. It remains in written form in the archaic spelling gaol mainly through statutory and official tradition. The only remaining spoken pronunciation is jail, from the Old Parisian French word jaiole.
From the 16th until the 18th centuries the word goal(e) was used widely, possibly as an erroneous spelling of gaol or possibly it was a phonetic spelling.
See also
- Gaol (god), a wind god in Iroquois mythology (pronounced ga-ol)
- Gaol fever, another name for epidemic typhus
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