Etymologically
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containment

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:27. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /kənˈteɪnmənt/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English contain + -ment,[2][3][4] and the OED compares Old French contenement.[2] contain is from Old French contenir, from Latin contineō (“to hold together, enclose”), from com- (“with, together”) and teneō (“to hold”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action or fact of containing, holding or restraining; also, in a sense now obsolete, bearing or behaviour: 1619, in T. Milles's translation of P. Mexía.[2] The OED's 1989 edition, Merriam-Webster and Etymonline date the word to 1655 or the 1650s,[5][6][3] and Dictionary.com to 1645–55.[4]

Semantic evolution

The word was little used until 1947, when it became the name of the Western policy of checking the expansion of the Soviet Union;[3][2] Etymonline associates it with the American diplomat George F. Kennan, who in an article in Foreign Affairs that year called for "a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies".[3] The OED's first record of the sense is from the Partisan Review of that year,[2] and Collins describes it as a principle of US foreign policy from 1947 to the mid-1970s.[7] In physics and engineering it later came to mean the confinement of a plasma in a fusion reactor,[7] and a structure or system that keeps radioactive material from escaping from a reactor.[8]

Timeline

  • 1619 – the action of containing; restraint.[2]
  • 1655 – first record in Merriam-Webster and in the OED of 1989.[6][5]
  • 1947 – the policy of containing a hostile power.[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act or condition of containing, holding or keeping something within limits; restraint or control: the containment of the oil spill.[6][7][8]
  2. A policy of checking the expansion or influence of a hostile power or ideology, especially that of the United States towards Communist states from 1947.[6][7][8][2]
  3. A structure or system designed to prevent the accidental release of radioactive material from a nuclear reactor.[8]
  4. (physics) The confinement of the plasma in a thermonuclear reactor, keeping it from reaching the walls of the vessel.[7]

Word family

  • biocontainment

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin