detention centre
"detention-centre" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“detention centre” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A facility in which people are detained (held in custody); a jail.
Corpus desk
Index EN-detention-centre · detention centre · English
detention centre · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | detention centre |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “detention centre” in English
Rare enough to double-check
detention centre is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for detention centre, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is detention centre, spelled D-E-T-E-N-T-I-O-N- -C-E-N-T-R-E.
Definition
- 1A facility in which people are detained (held in custody); a jail.
- 2An immigration detention facility; a facility in which people who have attempted to enter Australia without prior authorisation are detained, pending a decision on whether they are to be accepted as refugees or returned to their country of origin.
- 3A concentration camp.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how detention centre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
2002, Russell Hogg, Chapter 1: Prisoners and the Penal Estate in Australia, David Brown, Meredith Wilkie (editors), Prisoners as Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons, page 3, All jurisdictions have their own prison systems, although the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) has only one remand centre and one periodic detention centre.
New detention centres were opened, all in remote areas — at Woomera in the South Australian desert in November 1999, and the Curtin Detention Centre at Derby in Western Australia in February 2000.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.