confine

verb

1. 1

   obsoleteTo have a common boundary with; to border on.

   Where your gloomy bounds / Confine with heaven

   Betwixt heaven and earth and skies there stands a place / Confining on all three.

   ‘Why, Sir, to be sure, such parts of Sclavonia as confine with Germany, will borrow German words; and such parts as confine with Tartary will borrow Tartar words.’

2. 2

   To restrict (someone or something) to a particular scope or area; to keep in or within certain bounds.

   Now let not nature's hand / Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!

   1680, John Dryden, Ovid’s Epistles translated by several hands, London: Jacob Tonson, Preface, He is to confine himself to the compass of numbers and the slavery of rhyme.

   Here perhaps one of you might interrupt me and say, 'But what is it that you do, Socrates? How is it that you have been misrepresented like this? Surely all this talk and gossip about you would never have arisen if you had confined yourself to ordinary activities, but only if your behaviour was abnormal. Give us the explanation, if you do not want us to draw our own conclusions.'

noun

1. 1

   A boundary or limit.

2. 2

   Confinement, imprisonment.

   She says for you to bring her a slice of cake, A bottle of the best wine, And not to forget the fair young lady That did release you from close confine.

Forms

plural

confines

past tense

confined

past participle

confined

present participle

confining

third person singular

confines