Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Restricted to the service of one employer, as a laborer hired by him for the year; as, “a numerous body of confined labourers,”
  • Restrained within limits; imprisoned; secluded; close; narrow; mean: as, a confined mind.
  • In pathology, constipated: as, the bowels may be confined.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective having movement restricted to within a certain area; -- usually a building. Opposite of unconfined.
  • adjective deprived of liberty; especially placed under arrest or restraint.
  • adjective having movement restricted to within an enclosed outdoor area; -- of animals.
  • adjective (Med.) not invading healthy tissue.
  • adjective held prisoner.
  • adjective having movement or progress restricted to a certain area.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of confine.
  • adjective not free to move

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective being in captivity
  • adjective not free to move about
  • adjective not invading healthy tissue

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Going into what we call confined area landing sites -- CALS -- which is precisely what I was talking about, that last meter of dry land and that rooftop.

    Press Briefing By General Wilhelm ITY National Archives 1999

  • Kisumu or Port Florence (a term confined to the harbour) is a flourishing town built on a hill overlooking Victoria Nyanza.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" Various

  • Once a term confined to the personal-speak of high-minded tech geeks and derided by critics as a bogus marketing ploy, cloud computing today is arguably the hottest trend sweeping the information technology industry sector, investors, analysts and entrepreneurs say.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2009

  • Albert Holland is a psychologist for NASA who's worked with astronauts in confined spaces like the International Space Station.

    NASA Psychologist Assists Trapped Chilean Miners 2010

  • Albert Holland is a psychologist for NASA who's worked with astronauts in confined spaces like the International Space Station.

    NASA Psychologist Assists Trapped Chilean Miners 2010

  • But the lessons of Chile's nitrate boom and bust, which helped spur worker rights movements, should not remain confined to the desert.

    Stacy Torres: How My Father Survived Chile's Mines Stacy Torres 2010

  • And it may be true that the "discipline" -- literature as submitted to the protocols and conventions of academic inquiry -- can't remain "confined" to the question of aesthetic beauty, but this is a problem not for literature per se but for the subject "literature" as it is defined within the academic curriculum.

    Literary Study 2009

  • Albert Holland is a psychologist for NASA who's worked with astronauts in confined spaces like the International Space Station.

    NASA Psychologist Assists Trapped Chilean Miners 2010

  • Avoid being in confined areas with smokers: riding in cars, public places, home.

    Atopic dermatitis, eczema treatments 2010

  • Avoid being in confined areas with smokers: riding in cars, public places, home.

    Environmental allergy control 2010

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