detainee

UK/ˌdɪteɪˈniː/

nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,642 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: detainees

A detainee is somebody being held in custody. Release the detainees, a detainee's rights, detainees were questioned.

The word is deliberately vague about status, which is why it appears in reporting on places where people are held without charge. The -ee ending marks the person something is done to, as in employee and payee.

Definitions of detainee

1noundetaineeSomebody being held in custody.B2+
“The detainees were held for weeks without being charged or seeing a lawyer.”

detainee is a person.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Old French
detenir
English
detain
English, today
detainee

From detain + -ee. detain comes from Old French detenir. a doublet of détente. Cognate with Italian detenere, Portuguese deter, Romanian deține, and Spanish detener.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

detainee in the wild

Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul, nicknamed Triple-X by his American guards, was the first ghost detainee to be publicly acknowledged by American authorities.
Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul
As of January 6, 2025, 15 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.
List of Guantanamo Bay detainees
The court order required the DoD to release the names of all the detainees.
List of Guantanamo Bay detainees
Church's mandate was to investigate the interrogation and incarceration of detainees in the United States "war on terror", in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Church Report on detainee interrogation
Human Rights Watch reports that the Church inquiry didn't interview any detainees.
Church Report on detainee interrogation

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the detenir family

detain

detainee — used about once every 15,236 pages · #12,642 · point at the bar for the others

detention

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