detention.
The act of detaining or the state of being detained; hindrance.
Meaning & usage
The act of detaining or the state of being detained; hindrance.
A temporary state of custody or confinement. Confinement of a prisoner awaiting trial.
A temporary state of custody or confinement. A punishment given to a student for a minor infraction, typically requiring the student to report to a designated room during recess or outside of school hours to work on homework or perform busywork.
be stuck in detention
The bare physical control without the mental element of intention required for possession.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Middle French détention, from Latin detentio, detentionem. Equivalent to detain + -tion.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.