inmate
Pluralinmates
- 1Someone living under confinement in an institution, such as a prisoner in a jail or a patient in a hospital.
The prison transferred the inmate to a higher-security facility after the incident.
Doctors moved the agitated inmate to a quieter ward for observation.
- 2A person who shares a residence or other place with others, such as a lodger, a hotel guest, or a student living on campus.
As a long-term inmate of the lodging house, she knew all the other tenants by name.
Each inmate of the small hotel received a key to the front door.
Similarresident, lodger, occupant, boarder, guest
Note
Here the word keeps the company of its second half. Inmate is inn plus mate, or in- plus mate, and either way it can name someone who shares a roof rather than someone kept under one. Herman Melville writes of "the inmates of the coach" in 1852. Because the prison and hospital meaning sits so close, make the setting plain, such as a lodging house or a hotel, or the reader will hear confinement.
- 3A person riding within or held inside a vehicle; a passenger.
Each inmate of the lifeboat was counted before it was lowered to the water.
The coach's inmates complained of the cold during the long night journey.
Similarpassenger
Note
An uncommon stretch of the word to anything that carries people inside it, from a coach to a lifeboat. Henry Yule and his collaborators, writing in 1916, quote P. della Valle comparing palankins and andors, litters borne on a cane, where the rider is held within the frame. Passenger is the everyday choice. Use inmate only when the enclosure itself is the point.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "inn" plus "-mate," or from "in-" plus "-mate."