Dungeon

dungeon
    n 1: the main tower within the walls of a medieval castle or
         fortress [syn: {keep}, {donjon}, {dungeon}]
    2: a dark cell (usually underground) where prisoners can be
       confined
    

Dungeon \Dun"geon\, v. t.
   To shut up in a dungeon. --Bp. Hall.
   [1913 Webster]
    

dungeon \dun"geon\ (d[u^]n"j[u^]n), n. [OE. donjoun highest
   tower of a castle, tower, prison, F. donjon tower or platform
   in the midst of a castle, turret, or closet on the top of a
   house, a keep of a castle, LL. domnio, the same word as LL.
   dominus lord. See {Dame}, {Don}, and cf. {Dominion},
   {Domain}, {Demesne}, {Danger}, {Donjon}.]
   A close, dark prison, commonly, under ground, as if the lower
   apartments of the donjon or keep of a castle, these being
   used as prisons.
   [1913 Webster]

         Down with him even into the deep dungeon. -- Tyndale.
   [1913 Webster]

         Year after year he lay patiently in a dungeon. --
                                                  Macaulay.
   [1913 Webster]
    

Zork
Dungeon

   <games> /zork/ The second of the great early experiments in
   computer fantasy gaming; see {ADVENT}.  Zork was originally
   written on {MIT-DM} during the late 1970s, later distributed
   with {BSD Unix} as a patched, sourceless {RT-11} {Fortran}
   binary (see {retrocomputing}) and commercialised as "The Zork
   Trilogy" by {Infocom}.  The Fortran source was later rewritten
   for portability and released to {Usenet} under the name
   "Dungeon".

   Both Fortran "Dungeon" and translated {C} versions are
   available from many {FTP archives}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1998-09-21)
    

Dungeon
different from the ordinary prison in being more severe as a
place of punishment. Like the Roman inner prison (Acts 16:24),
it consisted of a deep cell or cistern (Jer. 38:6). To be shut
up in, a punishment common in Egypt (Gen. 39:20; 40:3; 41:10;
42:19). It is not mentioned, however, in the law of Moses as a
mode of punishment. Under the later kings imprisonment was
frequently used as a punishment (2 Chron. 16:10; Jer. 20:2;
32:2; 33:1; 37:15), and it was customary after the Exile (Matt.
11:2; Luke 3:20; Acts 5:18, 21; Matt. 18:30).
    

DUNGEON. A cell under ground; a place in a prison built under ground, dark, 
or but indifferently lighted. In the prisons of the United States, there are 
few or no dungeons. 
    

49 Moby Thesaurus words for "dungeon":
      POW camp, bastille, black hole, borstal, borstal institution,
      bridewell, brig, cell, concentration camp, condemned cell,
      death cell, death house, death row, detention camp, donjon,
      federal prison, forced-labor camp, gaol, guardhouse,
      house of correction, house of detention, industrial school,
      internment camp, jail, jailhouse, keep, labor camp, lockup,
      maximum-security prison, minimum-security prison, oubliette, pen,
      penal colony, penal institution, penal settlement, penitentiary,
      prison, prison camp, prisonhouse, reform school, reformatory,
      sponging house, state prison, stockade, stronghold, the hole,
      tollbooth, training school, vault