clinker = "jail"

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS encountered only two exx. of this variant of  "[the] clink," one from 1935 and an oral example in 1983.  Here's a third:

  2007 _Fox News Live_ (FNC TV) (Aug. 24): Lindsay Lohan is headed to the clinker after reaching a plea deal on drunken driving and cocaine charges.

  Google Groups offers one app. from Singapore:

  2005 _Usenet: soc.culture.singapore_   [http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.singapore/msg/3e1ce47fa7ed13a4] (Feb. 1): High Court Judge's son goes to the clinker.

  And from a prominent dramatist:

  1941 Tennessee Williams in _The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams_  I (ed. Devlin & Tischler) (New Directions) 310: They would pick me up for vagrancy and Langner would have to bail me out of the clinker.

  JL


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