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say it: KUH-stuh-dee
custody is a noun meaning "a state of being confined (usually for a short time)". It is pronounced /ˈkʌstədi/ — KUH-stuh-dee. It carries 3 recorded senses.
a state of being confined (usually for a short time)
“his detention was politically motivated”
“the prisoner is on hold”
“he is in the custody of police”
(with `in') guardianship over; in divorce cases it is the right to house and care for and discipline a child
“my fate is in your hands”
“too much power in the president's hands”
“your guests are now in my custody”
“the mother was awarded custody of the children”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for custody come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.