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Incarceration vs Arrest - What's the difference?

incarceration | arrest |

As nouns the difference between incarceration and arrest

is that incarceration is the act of confining, or the state of being confined; imprisonment while arrest is a check, stop, an act or instance of arresting something.

As a verb arrest is

to stop the motion of (a person or animal).

incarceration

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of confining, or the state of being confined; imprisonment.
  • Formerly, strangulation, as in hernia.
  • A constriction of the hernial sac, rendering it irreducible, but not great enough to cause strangulation.

    • Related terms

    * incarcerate

    arrest

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A check, stop, an act or instance of something.
  • The condition of being stopped, standstill.
  • (legal) The act of arresting a criminal, suspect etc.
  • A confinement, detention, as after an arrest.
  • A device to physically arrest motion.
  • (nautical) The judicial detention of a ship to secure a financial claim against its operators.
  • (obsolete) Any seizure by power, physical or otherwise.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • The sad stories of fire from heaven, the burning of his sheep, etc., were sad arrests to his troubled spirit.
  • (farriery) A scurfiness of the back part of the hind leg of a horse.
    • (White)

    Derived terms

    * arrest warrant * cardiac arrest * house arrest

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To stop the motion of (a person or animal).
  • * Philips
    • Nor could her virtues the relentless hand / Of Death arrest .
  • (obsolete) To stay, remain.
    • (Spenser)
  • To stop (a process, course etc.).
  • * 1994 , Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom , Abacus 2010, p. 707:
    • To try to arrest the spiral of violence, I contacted Chief Buthelezi to arrange a meeting.
  • * 1997 : Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault , page 69 (Totem Books, Icon Books; ISBN 1840460865)
    • Knowledge replaced universal resemblance with finite differences. History was arrested and turned into tables …Western reason had entered the age of judgement.
  • To seize (someone) with the authority of the law; to take into legal custody.
    • The police have arrested a suspect in the murder inquiry.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I arrest thee of high treason.
  • To catch the attention of.
  • * 1919 : :
    • There is something about this picture—something bold and vigorous, which arrests the attention. I feel sure it would be highly popular.

    Derived terms

    * arrester, arrestor * arrestment * arresting

    Anagrams

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