Gaioler

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A person whose job is to keep watch over prisoners inside a jail or prison
2. An official who looks after inmates held in a jail and keeps them under lock and key
3. Someone employed to guard captives confined in a jail, responsible for their custody

Etymology: A "gaioler" is an older spelling of "gaoler," the person in charge of a prison. The "-er" marks the keeper, added to "gaol," which came into Middle English from Old French "gaole" and Anglo-Norman "gaiole." Those forms trace back to Late Latin "caveola," a little cage, a diminutive of Latin "cavea," meaning a hollow enclosure. The surprise is the family connection. "Gaol" and "cage" are doublets, both descending from "cavea" by separate routes. "Cage" passed through Old French "cage" with a more literal sense of a container for animals, while "gaol" took the diminutive path to mean a place of confinement. The same ancient word for a hollow space therefore gave English both a birdcage and a prison, and the modern pronunciation "jail" comes from a spelling variant of "gaol."