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Turnkey   /tˈərnkˌi/   Listen
Turnkey

noun
(pl. turnkeys)
1.
Someone who guards prisoners.  Synonyms: gaoler, jailer, jailor, prison guard, screw.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Turnkey" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Lucie's new grief, he saw a man whose face and figure seemed familiar. Following, he soon recognized him as the English spy, Barsad, whose false testimony, years before in London, had come so near convicting Darnay when he was tried for treason. Barsad (who, as it happened, was now a turnkey in the very prison where Darnay was confined) had left London to become a spy in France, first on the side of the king and then on the ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... at the door, but it was not the turnkey. It was the butler to murmur, "Dinner, please." She went down and joined mamma and papa at the table. There were no guests except Terror and Suspense, and both of them wore smiling masks and made no visible ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... sudden silence, following upon the question, "How say you, Richard Yorke, are you guilty of this felony, or not guilty?" The turnkey by the prisoner's side muttered harshly behind his hand, "They have called on ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... own, and was, besides, calculated, from his acquirements, and a free, open generosity of spirit, to produce a deep interest in the fate which, in an unhappy hour, he brought upon himself. It was on the forenoon of the day I have mentioned, that the under turnkey of the prison of —— came in breathless haste, and called me to a prisoner. It was Eugene D——. I was at the moment occupied in thinking of the youth. He had forged a bill upon his father, Mr. D——, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... Keeper.— N. keeper, custodian, custos[Lat], ranger, warder, jailer, gaoler, turnkey, castellan[obs3], guard; watchdog, watchman; Charley; chokidar[obs3], durwan[obs3], hayward[obs3]; sentry, sentinel; watch and ward; concierge, coast guard, guarda costa[Sp], game keeper. escort, bodyguard. protector, governor, duenna[Sp]; guardian; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... he ate the piece of bread broken off a small loaf and drank from the bottle out of which the faithless turnkey hobnobbed with the sexton, the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... garden, Santerre used to come up with a troop of soldiers. The sentries whom they passed shouldered arms before Santerre; but as soon as he had passed and the king came, they grounded their arms, and pretended not to see him. In the door that led into the garden, Rocher, the turnkey, used to stand, and take his pleasure in letting the royal family wait before unlocking, while he blew great clouds of smoke into their faces from his long tobacco-pipe. The National Guards who stood in the neighborhood used to laugh at this, and hurl all sorts of low, vile words at the princesses. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... feel sure of his being good, But he happened to be in a pleasant mood,— As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,— (He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) So what does he do but up and shout To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... garden-gate, just wide enough to admit a single person. The great gate was never opened, no vehicle of any kind was admitted to pass through it, and a thick growth of horse-sorrel, both without and within the great oaken wings, bore witness to the fact. There was a turnkey at the little gate, and an old man—the only servant my uncle ever kept, who served for porter, gardener, and ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... says the General Advertiser for January 23, 1749, "about twenty fellows arm'd with Pistols, Cutlasses, Hangers, &c. went to the Gatehouse and one of them knocking at the Door, it was no sooner open'd than they all rush'd in, and struck and desperately wounded the Turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in Triumph carried off the Fellow who pick'd General Sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into Leicester House." Surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance of Daring Impudence must rouse every Person of Property to assemble ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they were to leave the prefecture. "I fear," he said, "that you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge without taking some interest ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... business to go to the East Indies than a man at full liberty has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock him up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a small vessel from England and gone directly to the island; had I loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the necessaries for the plantation and for ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... after a restless night on a bed of straw, we were awakened by the grim, hard-featured gaoler who had been kind enough to lock us up. He asked the doctor if we wished to have breakfast, and if we could pay for it; he answered in the affirmative. This turnkey gentleman informed us that our first admiral, Mons. Poncevan, had been killed by an assassin. This report puzzled all our wise heads. An hour afterwards our cafe-au-lait entered, and with it the principal gaoler, or, as he was called, Mons. le Gouverneur. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... you no explanation; yours has been the wrong. You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence, owe me a large debt of gratitude. And to conclude, as I have not yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a prisoner would induce you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... allow this evil. They will smash it out in one way or another. This blessed word was a "light to my feet and a lamp to my pathway." I rejoiced for the comfort it gave me; for the Lord truly talked to my soul while I read and reread this. I must say that "Little Dodds," the turnkey as I called him, was often kind to me, but he was completely the servant of Simmons and ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... was fettered are still shown at York Castle, and are of prodigious weight and strength; and though the herculean robber is said to have moved in them with ease, the present turnkey was scarcely able to lift the ponderous irons. An old woman of the same city has a lock of hair, said to have been Turpin's, which she avouches her grandfather cut off from the body after the execution, and which ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... wheels against the curb-stone, and halted. If any fresh crumbs of horror were about to be dropped, the children must be there to feast on them. Dr. Sevier stepped out, gave Mary his hand and then his arm, and went in with her. A question or two in the prison office, a reference to the rolls, and a turnkey led the way through a dark gallery lighted with dimly burning gas. The stench was suffocating. They stopped at the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... from a farmer's field, and sold it for forty pounds; and for that horse he was taken, put in prison, tried, and condemned to be sent to the other country for life. Two days before he was to be sent away, I got leave to see him in the prison, and in the presence of the turnkey I gave him a thin cake of gingerbread, in which there was a dainty saw which could cut through iron. I then took on wonderfully, turned my eyes inside out, fell down in a seeming fit, and was carried out of the prison. That same night my husband sawed his irons off, cut through ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... mates, but ye'll find ye can't argue with the judge," went on Thirkle in a quiet tone, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Ye'll find ye can't talk the turnkey into liberty, and it will be too late the morning the hangman opens the door ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... you go hopping into debt, my young cock-sparrow, or you'll know one side o' the turnkey better than t' other.' She had a friend with her who chid her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "Captain Tournier, will you oblige me by letting us have a short walk together?" Then turning to others who were near, he added, with a pleasant smile, "Gentlemen, I hope you are all well this morning," and putting his arm in Tournier's went to the gate. There was a guard-room and a turnkey's lodge outside. A glance through the grating of the heavy door, and the wicket ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... literature, in a note of his usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In support of the present reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes Pastor[*], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate," wherein the gentleman declares, that rather indeed in compliance with an old custom, than to gratify any particular will of his ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe

... duke, "I will attend you; but you must let me finish my oysters. You must require strength for the business you have to perform: you shall drink a glass of wine with me." He filled a glass for the executioner, another for the turnkey, and one for himself, and went to the place of execution, where he met death with the courage that distinguished almost all the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... slowly, and Hanriot was arrested. He was released, and brought back in triumph to the Hotel de Ville, where the arrested deputies soon assembled. They had been sent to different prisons, but all the gaolers but one refused to admit them. Robespierre insisted on being imprisoned, but the turnkey at the Luxembourg was unmoved, and turned him out. He dreaded to be forced into a position of illegality and revolt, because it would enable his enemies to outlaw him. Once outlawed, there was nothing left but an insurrection, of which the issue was uncertain. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... of the carriage as Lady Mary Fenwick spoke, and followed her into the prison. A turnkey was in waiting with a light, and led them round the outer court and through one or two dark and narrow passages to the cell in which Sir John Fenwick was confined. There was another turnkey waiting without; and Wilton, being admitted, found the wretched man whose ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James



Words linked to "Turnkey" :   lawman, keeper, peace officer, law officer



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