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LME.
1. The retention or withholding of what is due or claimed.
Shakespeare Timon of Athens The detention of long-since-due debts.
2. Now chiefly Law. Holding in one's possession or control; retention.
3. The action of arresting or confining, the state of imprisonment or confinement, now esp. of a military or political offender.
Lytton Offering twenty guineas reward for his detention. H. Arendt In totalitarian countries all places of detention ruled by the police are made to be veritable holes of oblivion.
b. At schools: keeping in as a punishment; an instance of this.
4. Hindrance to progress; compulsory delay.
Attrib. & comb.: In the sense 'where people are held in detention', as detention barrack, detention camp, etc. Special combs., as detention centre spec. an institution in which young offenders are detained for short periods.
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