internment
Americannoun
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an act or instance of interning, or confining a person or ship to prescribed limits during wartime.
the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
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the state of being interned; confinement.
noun
Etymology
Origin of internment
Compare meaning
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Explanation
Internment means putting a person in prison or other kind of detention, generally in wartime. During World War II, the American government put Japanese-Americans in internment camps, fearing they might be loyal to Japan. Internment usually doesn’t involve a trial, so you're being held because someone thinks you might be dangerous, but there’s no proof. The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II is now widely considered to have been a terrible mistake, in that the citizens who were detained — some for as long as four years — were not traitors, but loyal Americans, and their internment caused them considerable emotional and economic hardship. Internment comes from the Latin internus, “inward.”
Vocabulary lists containing internment
Farewell to Manzanar
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They Called Us Enemy
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World War II
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In California, language related to the internment of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar National Historic Site, as well as the history of Indigenous people in Death Valley and Muir Woods came under scrutiny.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2026
Before their internment, most of them came from poverty or jail before being enticed, or tricked, into fighting for Russia as mercenaries or on the promise of release from prison.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 11, 2025
By 1940, new policies ordered all German nationals - Jewish or not - into internment camps.
From BBC • Jul. 12, 2025
The use of this ancient wartime power, which was only used three times before, and grievously abused in the case of the Japanese and Italian American internment, is an attack on common sense.
From Salon • May 2, 2025
Like Jeanne Wakatski, my family was also stripped of everything we owned and placed in an internment camp.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
