confinement

confinement
    n 1: concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of
         contractions to the birth of a child; "she was in labor for
         six hours" [syn: {parturiency}, {labor}, {labour},
         {confinement}, {lying-in}, {travail}, {childbed}]
    2: the act of restraining of a person's liberty by confining
       them
    3: the state of being confined; "he was held in confinement"
    4: the act of keeping something within specified bounds (by
       force if necessary); "the restriction of the infection to a
       focal area" [syn: {restriction}, {confinement}]
    

Confinement \Con*fine"ment\, n.
   1. Restraint within limits; imprisonment; any restraint of
      liberty; seclusion.
      [1913 Webster]

            The mind hates restraint, and is apt to fancy itself
            under confinement when the sight is pent up.
                                                  --Addison.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Restraint within doors by sickness, esp. that caused by
      childbirth; lying-in.
      [1913 Webster]
    

85 Moby Thesaurus words for "confinement":
      accouchement, beleaguerment, besetment, birth, birth throes,
      birthing, blessed event, blockade, blockading, boundary, bounds,
      childbearing, childbed, childbirth, circumscription, closeness,
      constraint, continence, cordoning, cramp, cramping, crowdedness,
      delivery, discipline, dismemberment, enclosure, envelopment,
      estrapade, galleys, genesis, giving birth, hair, hairbreadth,
      hairsbreadth, hard labor, hatching, having a baby, immurement,
      impalement, imprisonment, incapaciousness, incarceration,
      inclusion, incommodiousness, jailing, keelhauling, labor, limit,
      limitation, martyrdom, moderation, multiparity, narrow gauge,
      narrowness, nascency, nativity, nearness, parturition,
      penal servitude, picketing, prescription, proscription,
      qualification, quarantine, railriding, restrain, restraint,
      restrictedness, restriction, rock pile, siege, slenderness, stint,
      straitness, strappado, strictness, tar-and-feathering,
      the Nativity, the gantlet, the stork, tight squeeze, tightness,
      torment, torture, travail