Custody

How to spell custody

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce custody

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does custody mean?

1. nounLegal responsibility for the care and control of a person or thing, especially a child.
2. nounThe state of being held by police or other authorities, especially under arrest.

Custody in a sentence

• The divorcing couple agreed to share custody of their two children.

• The suspect was taken into custody shortly after the robbery.

• The museum was granted custody of the rare manuscripts for safekeeping.

• He remained in custody overnight until the bail hearing.

Where does custody come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin custodia, meaning 'a guarding', 'a watching', or 'safe keeping', which was built on the noun custos, a 'guardian' or 'keeper'. In Roman use custodia could mean both the protective act of looking after something and the confinement of a prisoner under guard, and English inherited that same double life. The word arrived in English in the fifteenth century, at first carrying the sense of safe keeping and protective care before the legal meaning of being held under arrest became prominent. The same custos root surfaces in the rarer English word 'custodian', the person who keeps or guards a building. A useful spelling cue is that unstressed middle vowel: it sounds like a vague 'uh', yet it is written with an 'o', matching the original custodia.

How the word is built

• custod- (from Latin custos: guardian, keeper)
• -y (noun suffix)