A drunk tank is a jail cell accommodating, customarily or as a temporary expedient, at least one person who is intoxicated, especially with alcohol.
Traditionally, and in some jurisdictions currently, the circumstances of drunk-tank occupants may vary widely, as to whether in fact intoxicated, whether willingly there, whether isolated to protect them from others, confined to protect others from them, or simply permitted to find shelter, and whether legally under arrest, charged with an offense, or neither.
Famous quotes containing the word drunk:
“Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)