Confined

How to spell confined

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce confined

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does confined mean?

1. adjectiveRestricted in size or movement; cramped within narrow limits.
2. verbPast tense of confine: kept or restricted someone or something within limits.

Confined in a sentence

• adjective

  Working in such a confined office made the long afternoons feel even longer.

• verb

  A bad knee injury confined him to the house for several weeks.

• adjective

  The cellar was too confined to store all of the boxes safely.

• verb

  The report confined its findings to the three regions actually surveyed.

Where does confined come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin noun finis, which literally meant 'a boundary, limit, or end', the same root that gives us 'finish', 'final', and 'finite'. From finis Latin formed confinis, describing land or territory that shared a common border, and the related verb that meant to set within bounds. French carried this forward as confiner, 'to border on' or 'to shut within limits', and English adopted 'confine' in the sixteenth century. The form 'confined' is the past tense and adjective, describing something hemmed in or restricted to a small space. Because the root is finis, 'an end', remembering that confined is about being held within a fixed boundary helps fix the single 'n' and the 'fin' in the middle of the spelling.

How the word is built

• con- (together, completely)
• fin (boundary, end, from Latin finis)
• -ed (past/adjective suffix)