house arrest

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noun
  1. confinement of an arrested person to their residence or to a public place, such as a hospital, instead of in a jail: He was under house arrest until the day of his trial.

Origin of house arrest

1
First recorded in 1935–40

Words Nearby house arrest

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use house arrest in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for house arrest

house arrest

noun
  1. confinement to one's own home

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for house arrest

house arrest

Forcible detention in one's house rather than in a prison. House arrest is used by some nations as a way to silence political dissent without the elaborate trials and criminal proceedings that would bring bad publicity.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.