confiner

confiner noun: one who, or that which, limits or restrains.

Noun (1)

confiner (plural confiners)

One who, or that which, limits or restrains.
- […] as he attended him through the streets, the common people, and even women, uttered loud exclamations of abuse against him, calling him the murderer of syeds, and confiner of Chaund Sultana.1794, Jonathan Scott, transl., Ferishta’s History of Dekkan from the First Mahummedan Conquests, volume I, Shrewsbury, page 311
- […] I hope to gain a friend in you, and that will surely repay, a thousand times, the exertions I have at length happily made to terminate your captivity, which has, I know, been continued, rather from the obstinacy and idleness of your confiners, than any remaining malice against your country, or...1816, Barbara Hofland, chapter 2, in The Affectionate Brothers, volume 2, London: A.K. Newman, pages 40–41

Noun (2)

confiner (plural confiners)

(obsolete) A person who lives on the confines, boundary or edge; a neighbour.
- So did the worldes proud Mistres Rome at first
  Striue with a hard beginning, warr’d with need;
  Forcing her strong Confiners to the worst,
  And in her bloud her greatnes first did breed:1599, Samuel Daniel, The Civil Wars of England, Book 1, Stanza 18, in Poeticall Essayes, London: Simon Waterson, p. 4
- […] though Gladnesse, and Griefe, be opposites in Nature; yet they are such Neighbours and Confiners in Arte, that the least touch of a Pensill, will translate a Crying, into a Laughing Face […]1624, Henry Wotton, editor, The Elements of Architecture, collected by Henry Wotton Knight, from the Best Authors and Examples, London, Part 2, p. 88
(obsolete) A person who lives within the confines; an inhabitant.
- The senate hath stirr’d up the confiners
  And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,
  That promise noble service […]1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
(obsolete) A prisoner incarcerated for a set term.
- Lancaster Castle […] contains two classes of prisoners; first, the untried, and those sentenced to death or transportation; and secondly, confiners,—persons sent hither for terms of imprisonment and labour.1819, Joseph John Gurney, Notes on a Visit Made to Some of the Prisons in Scotland and the North of England in Company with Elizabeth Fry, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, p. 64

Examples of confiner in a sentence

The narrow adhesive strips […] are then applied spirally about the leg, as confiners.1876, C. Henri Leonard, chapter 11, in A Manual of Bandaging Adapted for Self-Instruction, Detroit: Daily Post, page 122:
And […] may be a terrour unto the confiners on that Sea, and to Nations which now conceive themselves safe from such an Enemy.1683, Thomas Browne, Certain Miscellany Tracts, London: Charles Mearn, Tract 12, page 187:

Forms of confiner

plural	confiners

Origin of confiner

From confine (verb) + -er.

From confine (noun) + -er.

Questions about confiner

What does confiner mean?: Confiner means one who, or that which, limits or restrains.
How do you use confiner in a sentence?: The narrow adhesive strips […] are then applied spirally about the leg, as confiners.
What part of speech is confiner?: Confiner is a noun.
What is the plural of confiner?: The plural of confiner is confiners.

Words near confiner in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: confiner (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “confiner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/confiner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.