custodial
Americanadjective
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of or relating to custody.
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of, relating to, or appropriate to a custodian.
a building superintendent's custodial duties.
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responsible for or providing protective supervision and guardianship rather than seeking to improve or cure.
Overcrowding forces many mental hospitals to provide only custodial care.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of custodial
Explanation
Someone whose job or task is custodial is supposed to take care of you. A babysitter's job is custodial. A guardian or caregiver of any kind has a custodial duty — he or she supervises and protects another person, usually a child. After a divorce, there's sometimes only one custodial parent, while the other only visits occasionally. When a criminal is sent to prison, it's often called a "custodial sentence," because the convicted person is being watched over and supervised in jail. The Latin root is custodia, "guarding or keeping."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Custodial holdings, a proxy for foreign official demand, have fallen to the lowest levels since 2012, when the Treasury market was roughly one-third of its current size, according to strategists at BofA Securities.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 30, 2026
Custodial manager Paul Fairhurst, 63, and senior officer Rachael Jameson, 31, have also been charged with health and safety failings.
From BBC • Nov. 8, 2022
Custodial care such as housekeeping or private caregiving, which hospice team members would not provide, is not covered by the hospice benefit.
From Washington Post • Jan. 20, 2022
“Our plan going forward is to enhance this space with ornamental plantings and increase the frequency of landscape maintenance at this site,” said Tommy Fallaw, Director of Custodial, Landscape and Recycling Services.
From Washington Times • Mar. 28, 2020
Two women are on the board of Craig Colony of Epileptics; three on that of the Custodial Asylum for Feeble-Minded.
From The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV by Harper, Ida Husted
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
