detain

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English deteinen, also deteynen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French detenir (“to hold off, keep back”),^[5][6][7][4] recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1121–25;^[8] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster name Middle French detenir as the immediate source.^[2][3] Hoad notes that the English form represents the stressed stem of the French verb.^[9][10] The French verb comes from Vulgar Latin *dēteniō,^[7][11] a Gallo-Romance form in Barnhart's account,^[2] which replaced Latin dētineō (“to hold off, keep back”),^[2][7][6] formed from dē- (“from, away”) and teneō (“to hold”),^[6][2][7] from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[6][7] Klein notes that the Old French verb was reshaped after tenir.^[4] The spelling detain settled in the 17th century, by association with contain, maintain and retain.^[2][6] Related words are detention, detinue and tenant.^[10][4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To hold back: about 1425, as deteynen, in Barnhart's dating;^[2] Etymonline finds it in the early 15th century, implied in deteined, for "keep back or away, withhold".^[6] The OED's first quotation, from before 1440 in the foundation history of St Bartholomew's, is a passive use, to be held or afflicted by an infirmity or disease,^[5] which the Oxford Dictionary of English gives as the original sense.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The sense of being held by an illness lasted until about 1660.^[5][13] The legal sense, to keep someone in confinement, appears in English in 1485, in Caxton,^[5][6] though Etymonline finds it in Anglo-French from the late 13th century.^[6] In the 16th century the verb also meant to keep back what was due (about 1535), to keep something in a place or state (1541), to hold a place with an armed force, and even to cause constipation (1580); all of these have died out.^[5] The ordinary modern sense, to keep a person from going on, to delay, dates from 1593, in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.^[5][6] Johnson (1755) listed "to keep that which belongs to another" first, then "to withhold" and "to restrain from departure".^[14] Since the 20th century it has been used especially of holding a political prisoner,^[5] and Merriam-Webster gives the police sense of holding a person for questioning first.^[3] Spenser used detain as a noun meaning detention (1596), but this did not survive.^[5][13]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – deteynen, to hold back.^[2]
• before 1440 – passive, to be afflicted with an infirmity (obsolete by 1660).^[5]
• 1485 – to keep in confinement, to keep prisoner.^[5]
• c. 1535 – to keep back, withhold, especially what is due.^[5]
• 1541 – to keep or retain in a place or condition (obsolete by 1774).^[5]
• 1593 – to keep from going on; to keep waiting; to stop.^[5][6]
• 1596 – noun detain, detention, in Spenser.^[5]
• 1600s – the spelling detain becomes established.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold someone in custody or confinement: Two men were detained by customs officers at the airport.^[3][15][5]
2. To keep someone from going on; to delay or hold back: A burst pipe detained her at home all morning.^[3][15][5]
3. To hold the attention of.^[3]
4. (archaic) To keep back something that is due; to withhold.^[3][15][5]

Word family

• detainment
• detainable
• detainer
• detainee
• detention

Related words

• detinue
• retain
• contain
• maintain
• tenant
• tenable

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins