Other forms: arrested, arrests, arresting
To arrest is to take a suspected criminal into custody. Arrest the suspect, under arrest, arrested on suspicion of.
In England and Wales an arrest requires reasonable grounds to suspect an offence and a reason why arrest is necessary, and the caution must be given. Under arrest means being held. It also means to stop something: arrest the decline, arrested development. In medicine, cardiac arrest is the heart stopping, which is not the same as a heart attack. Note arresting, which as an adjective means striking enough to stop you.
1verbarrestTo take a suspected criminal into custody.
“The police arrested the man for stealing a car.”
2verbstopTo stop something happening.
“Doctors hope the new drug will arrest the spread of the disease.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
arrest is a stopping or detaining.
Vulgar Latin arrestare is ad plus restare, to stop or remain — the same root as rest. An arrest is a stopping, and the medical and legal senses are both literal.
Proto-Indo-European
*steh₂- — to stand
Latin
ad- — to
Vulgar Latin
*arrestō
Old French
areste
Middle English
arest
English, today
arrest
Built from
From Middle English arest and aresten, from Old French areste and arester (“to stay, stop”), from Vulgar Latin arrestō, from Latin ad- (“to”) + restō (“to stop, remain behind, stay back”), from re- (“back”) + stō (“to stand”), from Proto-Indo-European steh₂- (“to stand”), equivalent to ad- + rest. Compare French arrêter (“to stop”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA