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.
In the finale, Daniel’s mother pulls out a necklace Mr. Miyagi gave her that belonged to his mother and, later, his wife, who died in a Japanese internment camp. Skyler Trepel, People.com, 15 Feb. 2025 After all, the same constitutional order that undergirds America’s contemporary liberal democracy permitted nearly a century of authoritarianism in the Jim Crow South, the mass internment of Japanese Americans, and McCarthyism. Steven Levitsky, Foreign Affairs, 11 Feb. 2025 That in of itself was not very unusual for the fashion industry, which had been paying close attention to the situation in Xinjiang, where more than a million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims are said to be under internment with many forced to work. Evan Clark, WWD, 4 Feb. 2025 Unaware of hidden listening devices in British internment facilities, the prisoners spoke freely about their involvement in the Holocaust providing unfiltered accounts that provide details that have never before been made public. Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 29 Jan. 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 3 Mar. 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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