From Latin 'detinere' (to hold away) — literally holding someone away from where they intend to go.
To keep someone from proceeding; to hold in official custody; to delay or hold back.
From Old French 'detenir' (to hold back, to keep, to retain), from Latin 'dētinēre' (to hold off, to keep back, to detain), composed of 'dē-' (from, away, off) + 'tenēre' (to hold, to keep, to maintain), from PIE *ten- (to stretch, to extend). The original Latin sense was 'to hold something away' or 'to keep something from proceeding.' The PIE root *ten- is one of the most productive in the Indo-European family: it generated Latin 'tendere' (to stretch), 'tenuis' (thin, stretched fine), 'tenor' (a holding, course), Greek 'teínein' (to stretch), 'tónos' (tension, tone), Sanskrit 'tanóti' (he stretches), and English 'thin' (via Proto-Germanic *þunnuz, stretched out). The legal
In international law, the distinction between 'detention' and 'imprisonment' is legally significant. Detention is the act of holding someone, often before trial or without formal charges, while imprisonment follows a conviction. The etymological precision matters: to detain is literally to 'hold from' — to prevent departure — which is conceptually different from imprisoning (putting