internment

noun

in·​tern·​ment in-ˈtərn-mənt 

ˈin-ˌtərn-

plural internments

: the act of interning someone or the state of being interned

His parents had never told him about the exclusion laws, or the internment of Japanese-Americans, and the subject had not come up in his textbooks.

—Timothy Egan

Even in the midst of betrayal and the resulting alienation experienced in the internment, there exists the unnegotiable state of human bonds and possibility for reconciliation.

—Fumitaka Matsuoka

… an American who spent World War II with his parents in an internment camp.

—Philip Siekman

Synonyms

• captivity
• confinement
• immurement
• impoundment
• imprisonment
• incarceration
• prison

Examples of internment in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The origin of the Spam musubi is murky, but some have suggested it was created by Barbara Funamura, a Japanese-American woman from Kauai, or during the Japanese internment camps during World War II. —Kathleen Wong, USA TODAY, 8 Aug. 2023

Of the thousands of internment camps the Nazis constructed, Terezin was unique. —Douglas Starr, Smithsonian Magazine, 29 Aug. 2023

Later, she was captured by the German military and became pregnant by a German officer in an internment camp. —Escher Walcott, Peoplemag, 27 Aug. 2023

The sweeping work presents Minidoka, an internment camp in Idaho where the Japanese American artist was incarcerated for two years in the early 1940s. —Angelica Aboulhosn, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Aug. 2023

When a Folk High School is turned into an internment camp for German refugees, the headmaster couple Jakob and Lis, and their children are thrust into an impossible situation. —Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 30 June 2023

The agreement, signed by 29 Diné representatives and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, allowed the Diné people to return to a part of their ancestral homeland after five years in exile and internment at Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. —Anna V. Smith, ProPublica, 26 June 2023

This scene was filmed on location in Aix-en-Provence, France, at the former internment site Camp des Milles, which is now a memorial museum. —Tyler Coates, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 June 2023

Mel and Josephine have been married 61 years, but this is the first time Josephine has been in Arkansas since her internment. —I.c. Murrell, Arkansas Online, 5 May 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1850, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

internment

noun

in·​tern·​ment

in-ˈtərn-mənt,

ˈin-ˌtərn-

: the act of interning : the state of being interned