DETENTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Detention

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/dɪtˈɛnʃən/ Listen

noun

Detention n.

The act of detaining or keeping back; a withholding.

The state of being detained (stopped or hindered); delay from necessity.

Confinement; restraint; custody. "The archduke Philip... found himself in a sort of honorable detention at Henry's court."

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Etymology of 'Detention'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Detention" Quotes from Famous Books

... part of this trip was not without its crop of stories, some humorous, and some atrocious. It was impossible to verify the statement of the Bavarian travelers who boasted of the treatment of English prisoners en route to the detention camp. On one occasion sixty were captured, they said, and only five brought home alive. The Bavarian soldiers guarding them said with a laugh, "But they were tired, so we had to shoot the rest"; and ...

— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... stuck to her for eight months, then made off in a body with the boats, carrying their captain and mates along with them. They regarded the situation of their ship as hopeless, and indeed, as it turned out, they were not very wrong, so far as their notions of reasonable detention went; for they never could have liberated the vessel by their own efforts; they must have waited, as we had, for the ice to free her; and this would have signified to them an imprisonment of two years and a half over and above the eight months ...

— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... have to explain Carlsen's death. They would be asked about the purpose of the voyage, the crew examined. It might mean detention, the defeat of the expedition, the very thing that Lund had feared, the following of them to the island. He wondered how Lund would take to ...

— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... in the scrubs of the east coast, which fully bore out the reports of the survivors of Kennedy's expedition as to the terribly toilsome nature of the labour to be undergone in cutting a track through them. Hann was lucky in not having his party attacked by sickness during his detention in such a dangerous locality; they all returned ...

— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... would require it They were afraid that poison might be put into the water if left outside after they had commenced the assault. Eesa Meean then declared, that he had been driven to this violent act by the detention of his girl by the Khasmahal, and must have her instantly surrendered, or they would put the boys to death. Hearing the noise from his bathing-room, their tutor, Karamut Allee, rushed into the room ...

— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

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