adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   simple past and past participle of detain form-of, participle, past

Adjective

1. 1
   Delayed or held back; kept from proceeding.

   "The detained train finally arrived hours late."

2. 2
   Held in custody or confinement.

   "He remained detained pending trial."

Synonyms

All synonyms

arrestedbackbackwardbehindbehindhandbelated

Example

More examples

"My boss detained me more than 30 minutes."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.