"lock someone up and throw away the key" meaning in English

See lock someone up and throw away the key in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: locks someone up and throws away the key [present, singular, third-person], locking someone up and throwing away the key [participle, present], locked someone up and threw away the key [past], locked someone up and thrown away the key [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|lock<> someone up and throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key}} lock someone up and throw away the key (third-person singular simple present locks someone up and throws away the key, present participle locking someone up and throwing away the key, simple past locked someone up and threw away the key, past participle locked someone up and thrown away the key)
  1. (slang, idiomatic) To lock someone up in prison indefinitely. Tags: idiomatic, slang Related terms: throw away the key
    Sense id: en-lock_someone_up_and_throw_away_the_key-en-verb-7Iijrp3v Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Prison

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "locks someone up and throws away the key",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locking someone up and throwing away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locked someone up and threw away the key",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locked someone up and thrown away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "lock<> someone up and throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key"
      },
      "expansion": "lock someone up and throw away the key (third-person singular simple present locks someone up and throws away the key, present participle locking someone up and throwing away the key, simple past locked someone up and threw away the key, past participle locked someone up and thrown away the key)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Prison",
          "orig": "en:Prison",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To lock someone up in prison indefinitely."
      ],
      "id": "en-lock_someone_up_and_throw_away_the_key-en-verb-7Iijrp3v",
      "links": [
        [
          "lock someone up",
          "lock up"
        ],
        [
          "prison",
          "prison"
        ],
        [
          "indefinitely",
          "indefinitely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, idiomatic) To lock someone up in prison indefinitely."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "throw away the key"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "lock someone up and throw away the key"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "locks someone up and throws away the key",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locking someone up and throwing away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locked someone up and threw away the key",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "locked someone up and thrown away the key",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "lock<> someone up and throw<,,threw,thrown> away the key"
      },
      "expansion": "lock someone up and throw away the key (third-person singular simple present locks someone up and throws away the key, present participle locking someone up and throwing away the key, simple past locked someone up and threw away the key, past participle locked someone up and thrown away the key)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "throw away the key"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English slang",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Prison"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To lock someone up in prison indefinitely."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "lock someone up",
          "lock up"
        ],
        [
          "prison",
          "prison"
        ],
        [
          "indefinitely",
          "indefinitely"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, idiomatic) To lock someone up in prison indefinitely."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "lock someone up and throw away the key"
}

Download raw JSONL data for lock someone up and throw away the key meaning in English (1.4kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.