Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also lock, lock-up house) a prison [20C+ use is SE].

[1674		Foote Cozeners (1778) 6: I overheard Luke Lockup, the turnkey].
1700		N. Ward The Rambling Rakes 7: She hath been in Kent-street-Lock more times that double the number of her hands and feet.
1772		Public Advertiser 1 Dec. 2/1: It is most alarming that Three Thousand free-born Englishmen should be inveigled into Lock-up Houses and criminally transported.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Lock up house. A spunging house; a public house kept by sheriff’s officers, to which they convey the persons they have arrested, where they practise every species of imposition and extortion with impunity. Also houses kept by agents or crimps, who enlist, or rather trepan, men to serve the East India or African company as soldiers.
1797		M. Leeson Memoirs (1995) III 233: Mooney [...] took her into custody; and with the most dreadful imprecations threatened to drag her through the streets to his own villainous lock-up house, if she did not immediately give him five guineas.
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 71: I was sent to the Lock-up-House.
1826		N.Y. Eve. Post 17 Nov. 2/3: This is the first escape ever made from the ‘iron lockup’.
1836		Hertford Mercury 5 Jan. 3/2: Irish Emigrants in America [...] They flourish their cudgels [...] get drunk and kick up a row [...] and make early acquaintance with the interior of the lock-ups.
1841		Hereford Jrnl 3 Feb. 4/6: Knighton Lock-Up [...] This wise policeman says that he found the two poor girls ‘in the exercise of their calling!’ Whether the same was exercised in or out of the lock-up he does not mention.
1848		Blackburn Standard 11 Oct. 2/4: Clitheroe Lock-Up House (Inspected November 11, 1847) [...] The cells were clean.
1853		in M. Carpenter Juvenile Delinquents 113: She was taken at the advice of a friend to the ‘lock-up’.
1865		W. Hilleary diary 28 Jan. in A Webfoot Volunteer (1965) 40: The indians in the ‘lock up’ gave us some amusement.
1871		Derbys. Advertiser 30 June 7/1: Report of a prisoner who had broken out and made his escape from Buxton Lock-up.
1877		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (1st ser.) 101: [He] just got off in time to escape being sent to the clink (which means, gentle reader, lock-up!) .
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Jan. 12/1: ‘Oh, he’s been enjoying hisself,’ was the reply, ‘he’s bin drunk since Friday, lost his billet on Toosday, hammered mother yesterday, and they took him to the lock-up last night.’.
1888		R. Barnett Police Sergeant C 21 30: The culprits [...] were secured, and that very night reposed serenely in the Sandbank lock-up.
1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Otherwise Engaged’ Sporting Times 22 Mar. 1/3: This was such a nasty knock that it gave him quite a shock, / And in the local lock-up he was caged.
1902		P.L. Dunbar Jest of Fate (1903) 64: I’ll nevah be able to git a job ag’in. Me in de lock-up – me, aftah all dese yeahs!
1912		N.Z. Truth 13 Jan. 8/2: The ‘cop’ [...] took him to the lock-up.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Thirsty Island’ in Three Elephant Power 76: The local lock-up has a record of eighteen drunks run in in seven minutes.
1925		L. Doyle Dear Ducks 142: Take that brute down [...] or I’ll have you an’ it in the lock-up in two minits.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 141: I think that maybe two or three days in the lock-up here would do this dame quite a lotta good.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 251: She took a chance on visiting Christy, in the Central Police lockup.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 211: Dope [...] is a shortcut to skid row or the lockup.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 57: They had been in every lockup in the South Island.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 20: The very thought of having to spend time in the lockup without any narco terrified him.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 130: Things have improved in the lock-up: stew, milk in your tea, the odd chook.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 165: When the call came in from Gloria La Marr down at the county lockup.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 49: Tiger Tommy hanged himself in the Ferntree Gully lockup.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 72: They were tracking a couple of drunks who’d escaped from the local lock-up.
2012		L. Berney Whiplash River [ebook] [H]e was staring at twenty years in the federal lock.

2. (UK Und., also lock-up house) a prisoners’ cell in a magistrates court or next to the gallows.

1823		Account of Mary M’Kinnon 14: The prisoner was removed from the Calton-hill Gaol to the Lock-up-house. [...] After hanging the usual time, her body was cut down.
1838		J. Grant Sketches in London 202–203: Illus. The Lock-up house.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 114: Poor Harry was brought down from the lock-up to the inn [...] preparatory to his being sent off to Maidstone Gaol.

3. (Aus.) the stomach.

1843

Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Feb. 3/2: Down went the lushous draught [...] ‘more,’ says our tee-totally (d—d) friend, ‘now I’ll wet the other eye’ — more than half a pint of Colonial stimulus was safely deposited is this gentleman’s ‘lock-up’.

4. (Aus./US prison, also lock) the punishment cell or cells.

1910		Truth (Brisbane) 4 Sept. 2/8: A woman inmate is doing seven days’ solitary, confinement on bread and water, in the lock-up for men.
1921		Telegraph (Brisbane) 29 June 2/1: A man named David Goerge Ross, 38 years of go. who was arrested at Mackay on Saturday last on a charge of drunkenness. died In tho lock-up at Mackay early on Sunday morning.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 20: Most of the rioters were taken to the lock-up.
1941		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 16 Jan. 3/4: Escape From Lockup. Leslie Gordon Denning, 42, escaped from the Gladstone lock-up [...] yesterday.
1956		Mirror (Perth) 21 Apr. 5/3: Lock-Up Keeper’s ‘Shiner’. Annoyed because their appeals against sentences of four years’ imprisonment each were dismissed [...] two young men attacked the lock-up keeper at Perth Central gaol.
1966		F. Elli Riot (1967) 156: You’re in Lock up all the time.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 11: Whenever an inmate is found guilty of violating prison rules, a customary punishment is isolation. Each prison has cellhouses or areas designated for this punishment. These areas are referred to as lockup units or lockup.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 74: I was in lock and I was starving [...] The lock is when you’re in isolation.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Culture 26 Mar. 3: The convict [...] has been put ‘in lock-up’.

5. (US prison) the punishment of solitary confinement.

1954

(con. 1941) C. Chessman Cell 2455 220: I was given four Sunday lock-ups and lost my privilege card for thirty days.

6. (US prison) a jailer, a warder.

1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 96: The doc glanced over his shoulder and Bruno saw that the lockup waited at the door.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 286: That lockup wouldn’t have talked that way if there hadn’t been bars between you.

7. (UK gay) a lockable cubicle in a public lavatory.

1988

A. Hollinghurst Swimming Pool Library 202: ‘Must have a piss,’ I said. [. . . .] I was kissing him and then bundling him down the passage and through the swing door. [...] A lock-up was empty and I pushed him in in front of me, falling back in amazement against the door when I had bolted it.

8. (US) an arrest.

1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 78: On the rare occasion when they raided the shooting gallery, they’d never include Rita in the lockups.
2021		J. Fenton We Own This City 16: Over the next eight months,[he]made a staggering 230 lockups.