Contain vs Confine - What's the difference?
contain | confine |
(lb) To hold inside.
*
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To include as a part.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*
To have as an element.
To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
* Bible, vii. 9.
To restrict; to keep within bounds; to shut or keep in a limited space or area.
* Shakespeare
* Dryden
To have a common boundary; to border; to lie contiguous; to touch; followed by on'' or ''with .
* Milton
* Dryden
In transitive terms the difference between contain and confine
is that contain is to put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds while confine is to restrict; to keep within bounds; to shut or keep in a limited space or area.As a noun confine is
limit.contain
English
Verb
(en verb)- At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
Welcome to the plastisphere, passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,
Subtle effects, passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}
- The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.
- Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.
- Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
- But if they can not contain , let them marry.
Synonyms
* (hold inside) enclose, inhold * (include as part) comprise, embody, incorporate, inhold * (limit by restraint) control, curb, repress, restrain, restrict, stifleAntonyms
* (include as part) exclude, omit * (limit by restraint) release, ventExternal links
* * *confine
English
Verb
(confin)- Now let not nature's hand / Keep the wild flood confined ! let order die!
- He is to confine himself to the compass of numbers and the slavery of rhyme.
- Where your gloomy bounds / Confine with heaven
- Betwixt heaven and earth and skies there stands a place / Confining on all three.