internment

Etymology

The revised OED takes it as borrowed from French internement, recorded in French from 1838, and remodelled after the English adjective intern and later the verb;^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also derives it from French.^[3] The French noun is formed from interner (“to intern”) and -ment.^[2][3] Etymonline, the Shorter Oxford and Dictionary.com instead explain it as formed in English from the verb intern and -ment, comparing the French word.^[4][5][6] The French verb is formed from interne (“inner, internal”),^[4][5] from Latin internus (“within, internal”),^[4][7][5] which the OED analyses as in (“in”) with the adjective suffix -ternus.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The confining of a person or thing within the limits of a country or place: 1850, in a letter of G. P. Marsh among the correspondence of the United States Department of State.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the word to 1840,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1865–70.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The noun is recorded earlier than the English verb intern in this sense, which Etymonline dates to 1866 and which the OED traces to French interner, to oblige a person to live within set limits.^[4][2] In the 20th century the word narrowed to detention without trial for political or military reasons:^[2] Etymonline finds the phrase internment camp from 1916,^[4] and the Shorter Oxford defines it as a camp for prisoners of war and aliens.^[5] Collins mentions enemy citizens in wartime and suspected terrorists as typical internees.^[9]

Timeline

• 1850 – the confining of a person or thing within the limits of a country or place.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the word to 1840.^[4]
• 1916 – internment camp.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of interning people, or the state of being interned, especially the detention without trial of enemy citizens in wartime or of people suspected of terrorism: Thousands of residents were held in internment until the war ended.^[9][3][2]
2. Used before another noun, as in internment camp, a camp for the detention of prisoners of war and foreign nationals.^[9][5][4]

Word family

• internment camp

Related words

• intern
• internal
• interment

References

1. ^ a b 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins