confine
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to enclose within bounds; limit or restrict.
She confined her remarks to errors in the report. Confine your efforts to finishing the book.
- Synonyms:
- circumscribe
- Antonyms:
- free
-
to shut or keep in; prevent from leaving a place because of imprisonment, illness, discipline, etc..
For that offense he was confined to quarters for 30 days.
- Antonyms:
- free
noun
-
Usually confines. a boundary or bound; limit; border; frontier.
-
Often confines. region; territory.
-
Archaic. confinement.
-
Obsolete. a place of confinement; prison.
verb
-
to keep or close within bounds; limit; restrict
-
to keep shut in; restrict the free movement of
arthritis confined him to bed
noun
Other Word Forms
- confinable adjective
- confineable adjective
- confineless adjective
- confiner noun
- nonconfining adjective
- preconfine verb (used with object)
- quasi-confining adjective
- reconfine verb (used with object)
- self-confining adjective
- unconfinable adjective
- unconfining adjective
Etymology
Origin of confine
1350–1400 for noun; 1515–25 for v.; (noun) Middle English < Middle French confins, confines < Medieval Latin confinia, plural of Latin confinis boundary, border ( con-, fine 2 ); (v.) < Middle French confiner, verbal derivative of confins < Latin, as above
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.
I hope it finds its intended audience, extending Mr. Mansfield’s career as a master teacher beyond the confines of his time at Harvard.
Relatives of the detained crew members allege they have been confined to a tiny room on the vessel without proper food or potable drinking water.
From BBC
Quadriplegic and confined to a medicalised portable cabin in the Chinese countryside, 36-year-old Li Xia can only move one finger and one toe, which he uses to manage a high-tech farm.
From Barron's
His case is in many ways similar to others with severe neuromotor disorders, such as British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who was confined to a wheelchair and could only communicate through a voice synthesiser.
From Barron's
The interior—small, even a bit confining—is inimitably Honda: serene and understated, quietly purposeful, with tasteful applications of tech and lots of single-purpose switches, including the illuminated centrality of the S+ Shift function button.
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.
