In so many words go to jail (8)

I believe the answer is:

sentence

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But I can't explain it at all! Could you help me understand?

(Other definitions for sentence that I've seen before include "Condemnation" , "Line of words" , "Judge's punishment" , "complete grammatical structure" , "String of words satisfying grammatical rules" .)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.

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