custody

Borrowed from Latin custōdia (“a keeping, watch, guard, prison”), from custōs (“a keeper, watchman, guard”). Doublet of custode.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʌstədiː/ (Estuary English)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophone: custardy (in some dialects)

custody (usually uncountable, plural custodies)

1. The legal right to take care of something or somebody, especially children.

   The court awarded custody to the child's father.

   The mother gained custody of the children.

2. Temporary possession or care of somebody else's property.

   I couldn't pay the bill and now my passport is in custody of the hotel management.

3. The state of being imprisoned or detained, usually pending a trial.

   He was mistreated while in police custody.

   • 1958, Southern Reporter. Second Series, page 297:

     Original petition for writ of habeas corpus to obtain release from custody under sentence to five years imprisonment for aiding coprisoners in endeavors to escape from jail.

4. (Roman Catholicism) An area under the jurisdiction of a custos within the Order of Friars Minor.

   The Custody of the Holy Land includes the monasteries of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem.

• custodial
• custodian

• “custody”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “custody”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “custody”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Custódia Priberam Dictionary