confinement

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French confinement. By surface analysis, confine +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈfaɪnmənt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: con‧fine‧ment
• Rhymes: -aɪnmənt

Noun

confinement (countable and uncountable, plural confinements)

1. The act of confining or the state of being confined.
   • 2025 June 13, Rosa Flores, “Missing Navy sailor found dead in Virginia, another sailor in custody”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     “A Navy Sailor has been placed in pretrial confinement in connection with the death of Seaman Resendiz. Charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice are pending,” NCIS told CNN in a statement Thursday.

2. (dated) Lying-in, time of giving birth.

   Synonyms: labour, birthing

   • 1887, The Popular Science Monthly, volume 31, page 629:

     In confinement ladies are attended, not by the ordinary doctors, but by women especially devoted to the calling, who regard their profession as honorable and humanitary.

   • 1913, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in Sons and Lovers:

     At the wakes time Morel was working badly, and Mrs. Morel was trying to save against her confinement.

3. lockdown

Derived terms

• anticonfinement
• bioconfinement
• confinement loaf
• confinement time
• deconfinement
• energy confinement time
• expected date of confinement
• nanoconfinement
• nonconfinement
• postconfinement
• preconfinement
• reconfinement
• self-confinement
• solitary confinement
• unconfinement

Translations

state of being confined

• Bulgarian: ограничение (bg) n (ograničenie)
• Catalan: confinament (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 監禁 / 监禁 (zh) (jiānjìn)

• Czech: zajetí (cs) n
• Finnish: eristys (fi), vankeus (fi)
• French: confinement (fr) m
• Galician: confinamento (gl) m
• Greek: φυλάκιση (el) f (fylákisi)
• Italian: confinamento m
• Japanese: 監禁 (ja)
• Korean: 갇힘 n (gachim), 얽매임 n (eongmaeim), 속박 (ko) n (sokbak), 구금 (ko) (gugeum), 감금 (ko) (gamgeum)
• Latin: inclūsiō f
• Macedonian: ограничу́вање n (ograničúvanje), затво́рање n (zatvóranje), заклучу́вање n (zaklučúvanje)
• Malay: pengurungan
• Māori: mauheretanga (As a prisoner), hamarurutanga
• Marathi: बंदिवास (bandīvāsa)
• Occitan: confinament (oc) m
• Portuguese: confinamento (pt) m
• Russian: заключе́ние (ru) n (zaključénije), заточение (ru) n (zatočenije), ограниче́ние (ru) n (ograničénije)
• Spanish: confinamiento (es) m
• Tocharian B: prutkālñe
• Ukrainian: ув'язнення (uvʺjaznennja)

lying-in

• Bulgarian: раждане n (raždane)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 坐月子 (zh) (zuòyuèzi)

• Greek: τοκετός (el) m (toketós)
• Macedonian: породу́вање n (porodúvanje)
• Malay: pantang (ms), pramurawat
• Russian: ро́ды (ru) pl (ródy)
• Yiddish: קימפּעט f (kimpet)

Further reading

• “confinement”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

French

Etymology

From confiner (“to confine”) +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.fin.mɑ̃/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (Canada (Shawinigan)):

  (file)

• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

  (file)

Noun

confinement m (plural confinements)

1. confinement
2. the act of quarantining, of putting into quarantine

   Synonym: mise en quarantaine

3. quarantine
4. lockdown

   être en confinement ― to be in lockdown, under lockdown

5. containment

   enceinte de confinement ― containment building

Antonyms

• déconfinement

See also

• quarantaine
• isolement

Further reading

• “confinement”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012