confinement

American  

[kuhn-fahyn-muhnt] / kənˈfaɪn mənt /

noun

• confinements
  plural

1. the act of confining.

2. the state of being confined.

3. the lying-in of a woman in childbed; accouchement; childbirth.

4. Military. incarceration in a guardhouse or prison while awaiting trial or as a punishment (distinguished from arrest).

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confinement British  

/ kənˈfaɪnmənt /

noun

1. the act of confining or the state of being confined

2. the period from the onset of labour to the birth of a child

3. physics another name for containment

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonconfinement
  noun
• postconfinement
  noun
• preconfinement
  noun
• self-confinement
  noun
• semiconfinement
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• confinements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of confinement

1640–50; confine + -ment; compare French confinement

Explanation

If you're dealing with confinement to a jail cell, or your classroom, or the broom closet, you're stuck there and you can't leave. Confinement means you're being held and you can't move freely. Confinement doesn't have to be punishment. If you've got a contagious disease, your doctor may recommend confinement to your hospital room. Puppies sometimes prefer confinement in a crate to sleeping in an open room. You may also come across an old-fashioned use of the word confinement, referring to a woman in childbirth, which goes back to when women retired to their rooms to give birth and recuperate. Confinement contains the Latin root finis, "end, limit” — confinement certainly is limiting.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

confinement confinements

He noted that she'd already spent 15 months in solitary confinement at the time of her sentencing.

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026

He faces a maximum term of life in confinement.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026

It may affect both the chiral transition and the transition associated with quark confinement.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 3, 2026

OpenAI’s revelation this past week that its AI models escaped confinement and hacked another tech company’s systems gave new credibility to fears that this technology can, in fact, go sci-fi villain mode.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

Unlike the Box at Coxsackie, which had seemed a true solitary confinement, with inmates hard-pressed to communicate with each other through solid-steel doors with Lexan windows, the cells here were barred.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

Bursting through the confinements of movie logic, “It Ends” untrains audiences out of their certainty that every crisis has a solution.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026

He added the trust had recruited 75 nurses and healthcare support workers since the report was written, improved training, communication with deaf patients and reduced daytime confinements.

From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2024

Given the typically short confinements in the juvenile system, they added, how could that have any greater effect?

From Washington Post ● Feb. 22, 2022

He told reporters confinements and other consequences of surging infection numbers were worrying, but "should not lead to an increase in inflation, on the contrary".

From Reuters ● Dec. 20, 2021

In return for your four confinements and all your labour in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?

From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell

Related Words

• custody
• detention
• incarceration
• internment
• jail
• repression