house of detention

noun

"house-of-detention" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“house of detention” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
18
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A prison, especially a temporary one.

Corpus desk

Index EN-house-of-detention · house of detention · English

house of detention · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 18 letters
  • VOW-8 8 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" 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.

Key facts for house of detention
PropertyValue
Headwordhouse of detention
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “house of detention” in English

house of detentionranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

house of detention is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A prison, especially a temporary one.".

No misspelling variants are generated for house of detention in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: From house + of + detention. The correct English form is house of detention, spelled H-O-U-S-E- -O-F- -D-E-T-E-N-T-I-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    A prison, especially a temporary one.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how house of detention appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Mama looked down and spit on the ground / Every time my name gets mentioned / The papa say "Oy, if I get that boy / I'm gonna stick him in the house of detention"

Etymology

From house + of + detention.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "house of detention"?
"house of detention" is spelled H-O-U-S-E- -O-F- -D-E-T-E-N-T-I-O-N.
What does "house of detention" mean?
As a noun, "house of detention" means: A prison, especially a temporary one.
What is the origin of the word "house of detention"?
From house + of + detention. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list