Detainee

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Someone who is detained, especially in custody or confinement.

    "In his statement, Miliband said the two flights had refuelled at Diego Garcia. Each one had a single detainee on board who did not leave the aircraft."

  2. 2
    some held in custody wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
captivepolitical detaineeprisoner

Example

More examples

"It’s sad when a child is a detainee of our government."

Etymology

From detain + -ee.

Related phrases

ghost detainee

More for "detainee"

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