confinement
Americannoun
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the act of confining or the state of being confined
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the period from the onset of labour to the birth of a child
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physics another name for containment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonconfinementnoun
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postconfinementnoun
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preconfinementnoun
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self-confinementnoun
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semiconfinementnoun
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of 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.
Vocabulary lists containing confinement
Vocabulary from "Community is the 'killer app' missing from virtual reality" by Dmitri Williams
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"The Bet" by Anton Chekhov
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Farewell to Manzanar
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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.
Ellwood later recalled: 'I was still under a kind of Confinement, unless I would have run about the Country bare-headed, like a Mad-Man'.
From Science Daily • May 7, 2026
The hearing took place on the fourth day of the mass trial at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center, southeast of San Salvador.
From Barron's • Apr. 24, 2026
A prisoner is moved by a guard at the Terrorist Confinement Center, a high-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 11, 2025
All nine jurors upheld a district court ruling demanding his return, acknowledging his deportation to the Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT, was unlawful.
From Salon • Apr. 11, 2025
Translated from the Italian of Father M——r S——ini, who is now under Confinement for the same in Naples, by Order of Don Carlos.
From The Scribleriad and The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue by Anonymous
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.
