Slang for prison — the house that's built of iron bars instead of drywall. It's part of a long tradition of euphemistic and metaphorical names for incarceration, like 'the big house,' 'the joint,' or 'the can.' Iron house has a bleaker, more poetic ring to it — the permanence and hardness of iron standing in for everything oppressive about incarceration. You'll find it in older slang dictionaries and still occasionally in rap lyrics and street vernacular.
After the third offense, the judge sent him straight to the iron house with no discussion of probation.
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(slang) prison.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.