house arrest

American  

noun

house arrests plural

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.

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house arrest British  

noun

1. confinement to one's own home

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house arrest Cultural  

1. 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.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• house arrests
  plural

Etymology

Origin of house arrest

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Deng also crushed intraparty democracy, Pei said, with only Zhao Ziyang—the reform-minded party secretary who was placed under house arrest after opposing the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989—daring to experiment with it briefly.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026

His co-conspirator Mark Chavez was sentenced to house arrest.

From Barron's • May 27, 2026

By May 2009, she was in New York City on a visa, and in July she met Epstein at his house in West Palm Beach while he was under house arrest, Roza said.

From BBC • May 13, 2026

Mrs. Kirchner is serving a six-year sentence under house arrest for fraud in the administration of public-works contracts in the province of Santa Cruz.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 10, 2026

So when we were released in August and put under house arrest, you'd have thought I was getting just the punishment for me.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez