detain

Other forms of detain

past tense

detained·

present participle

detaining·

third person

detains·

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.

Questions about detain

What does detain mean?

detain means "deprive of freedom; take into confinement". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in detain?

detain has 2 syllables: de-tain. The stress falls on "tain". In IPA it is /dɪˈteɪn/.

What is another word for detain?

Close synonyms include confine, stay, delay, delay, hold up. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is detain a common word?

detain is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with detain?

10 words rhyme with detain. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.