internment

noun

in·​tern·​ment in-ˈtərn-mənt How to pronounce internment (audio)
ˈin-ˌtərn-
plural internments
: the act of interning someone or the state of being interned
His parents had never told him about the exclusion laws, or the internment of Japanese-Americans, and the subject had not come up in his textbooks.Timothy Egan
Even in the midst of betrayal and the resulting alienation experienced in the internment, there exists the unnegotiable state of human bonds and possibility for reconciliation.Fumitaka Matsuoka
… an American who spent World War II with his parents in an internment camp.Philip Siekman

Examples of internment in a Sentence

the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II is one of the more shameful chapters in United States history
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
The story is based on Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents, who met at the library in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Lillian Ali, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 May 2025 The law has been used just three times: in the War of 1812, World War I, and, infamously, in World War II to imprison Japanese-Americans in internment camps — a shameful chapter in our history. Juan Vargas, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 May 2025 The Afterlife Is Letting Go, Brandon Shimoda’s book about how survivors and descendants of the United States’ Japanese internment camps try to keep their families’ histories alive, is also a look at the brutal system of migrant detention that continues to this day. Francisco Cantú, The New York Review of Books, 3 Apr. 2025 There’s a permanent collection of over 60,000 artifacts and the exhibitions are impressively disparate: Shows examine everything from the cultural legacy of Hello Kitty to WWII-era Japanese internment camps. Mae Hamilton, AFAR Media, 1 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for internment

Word History

First Known Use

1850, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of internment was in 1850

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Cite this Entry

“Internment.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/internment. Accessed 19 May. 2025.

Kids Definition

internment

noun
in·​tern·​ment
in-ˈtərn-mənt,
ˈin-ˌtərn-
: the act of interning : the state of being interned

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