detain
verb [T often passive] /dɪˈteɪn/Definition
› to force someone officially to stay in a place: A suspect has been detained by the police for further questioning. Several of the injured were detained overnight in hospital.Putting people in prison › to delay someone for a short length of time: I'm sorry I'm late - I was unavoidably detained.Delaying and wasting time detain sb at His/Her Majesty's pleasure UK legal › to keep someone in prison for as long as the courts feel is necessaryPutting people in prison
(Definition of detain verb from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Delaying and wasting time, but you might be interested in these topics from the Doing and achieving topic area:
- Abstaining and refraining
- Acting and acts
- Avoiding action
- Becoming better
- Cancelling and interrupting
- Competing and contending (non-sporting)
- Coping and not coping
- Describing the leading position
- Efficient and effective
- Expressions telling people to hurry up
- Failing and doing badly
- Failures
- Getting involved for one's own benefit or against others' will
- Hesitating
- Higher and lower points of achievement
- Hurrying and doing things quickly
- Making progress and advancing
- Making things better
- Performing a function
- Potential
- Reacting and responding
- Repeating an action
- Succeeding, achieving and fulfilling
- Success and achievements
- Successful (things or people)
- Surpassing in quality or number
- Taking part and getting involved
- Trying and making an effort
- Unsuccessful (people and things)
- Waiting
- Ways of achieving things
Browse the Thesaurus
SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- ado noun
- be on ice idiom
- buy time idiom
- carry sth over phrasal verb
- dally verb
- get behind phrasal verb
- hang/hold fire idiom
- hold off phrasal verb (RAIN/STORM)
- hold on phrasal verb (WAIT)
- hold sb/sth back phrasal verb (STOP DEVELOPMENT)
- hold sb/sth up phrasal verb (DELAY)
- mothball verb
- pigeonhole verb
- put sth back phrasal verb (DELAY)
- put sth off phrasal verb
- retard verb
- retardation noun
- set sth/sb back phrasal verb
- stall verb (DELAY)
- wait verb
Topic:
Delaying and wasting time
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Word of the Day
a cloud on the horizon
something which threatens to cause problems or unhappiness in the future
Blog
Read our blog about how the English language behaves.
New Words
Find words and meanings that have just started to be used in English, and let us know what you think of them.
