The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gaol \Gaol\ (j[=a]l), n. [See Jail.] A place of confinement, especially for minor offenses or provisional imprisonment; a jail. [Preferably, and in the United States usually, written jail.]
Commission of general gaol delivery, an authority conferred upon judges and others included in it, for trying and delivering every prisoner in jail when the judges, upon their circuit, arrive at the place for holding court, and for discharging any whom the grand jury fail to indict.
Gaol delivery. (Law) See Jail delivery, under Jail.
Usage examples of "gaol delivery".
The rogue being apprehended, committed to prison, and tried in the next assizes (whether they be of gaol delivery or sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond, either by inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible witnesses upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked life, and due punishment received for the same.
Now the clerk of the assize would be calling all those who had business before his Lady the Queen's Justices of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery for the Jurisdiction of the High Court to draw near and give their attention.