arrest
Verbarrests, arresting, arrested
Noun pluralarrests
Formsarrests, arresting, arrested
Pluralarrests
- 1To seize someone under the authority of the law and take them into legal custody.
Police can arrest anyone caught committing a crime.
Detectives arrested two men in connection with the robbery.
UsageSomeone is arrested for a crime (arrested for theft), or on suspicion of it.
Similarapprehend, detain, seize, capture
Oppositerelease, free, liberate
Note
The verb of police and courts, with a long pedigree. Shakespeare's Henry V has "I arrest thee of high treason", where of names the charge. The object need not be a person: a court can order a merchant ship arrested, which makes this the verb behind the maritime detention of vessels.
- 2The act or process of seizing a suspect or criminal and taking them into legal custody.
The arrest took place without any resistance from the suspect.
News of the arrest spread quickly across social media.
UsagePolice make an arrest (or make arrests), and news reports speak of the arrest of someone.
Similarapprehension, capture
Note
Keep it apart from the confinement that follows. An arrest is the moment of seizure, while being under arrest is the state of being held afterward.
- 3Confinement or detention, such as the period of being held following a legal seizure.
The officer placed the cadet under arrest for the remainder of the voyage.
Following the incident, the lieutenant spent a month under arrest.
UsageUsually in under arrest: be, place someone or keep someone under arrest.
Similardetention, confinement, custody
- 4A stopping or checking of something's motion or progress, or the state of being stopped; a standstill.
Severe hunger in early childhood can cause a lasting arrest of physical and mental development.
The trial found that the new drug produced an arrest of tumor growth in most patients.
UsageOften an arrest of something (an arrest of growth); in medicine, cardiac arrest is the heart stopping.
Note
The core meaning, and the one nearest the word's roots: Middle English arest, through Old French arester "to stay, stop", from Latin ad- "to" and restō "to stop, remain behind", itself built on stō "to stand". An arrest here is a halt in something moving, such as a rotation or a rise in prices. Most of the other meanings, the police one included, are particular kinds of this stopping.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Arrest derives from Middle English arest, ultimately through Old French arester. en.wiktionary.org
- Old French arester meant to stay or stop. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin components behind the word are ad- and restō, through reconstructed Vulgar Latin *arrestō. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin ad- means to. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin restō means to remain or stay behind and is formed from re- and stō. en.wiktionary.org
- 5To stop or slow down a process or course of events.
The treatment can arrest the disease's progress for several years.
Rising interest rates arrested the rapid growth of the housing market.
UsageMost often with a process as its object: arrest the decline, arrest the spread of a disease.
Similarhalt, stop, check, slow, curb
Oppositeaccelerate, quicken, stimulate
Note
The figurative stop, applied to trends rather than bodies. Nelson Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom, tries "to arrest the spiral of violence". Its natural objects are things already in motion, and in Chris Horrocks's Introducing Foucault (1997) even "History was arrested". It can mean slowing as well as ending, so an arrested decline may still be under way.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Nelson Mandela uses the quoted wording in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. zambiancu.org
- Chris Horrocks wrote Introducing Foucault, first published in 1997. openlibrary.org
- Introducing Foucault contains the exact words History was arrested. en.wiktionary.org
- 6To suffer a sudden stopping of the heart; to undergo cardiac arrest.
The man arrested twice before the team restored his heartbeat.
Without quick treatment, patients may arrest within minutes.
UsageMostly said by doctors and nurses (the patient arrested); in everyday speech, someone went into cardiac arrest.
Note
Clinical shorthand for the heart stopping, in which the patient arrests. In Ashley and Niebauer's Cardiology Explained (2004), a doctor removes the catheter "just as his patient arrested". Because it takes no object, its usual frame differs from the police meaning. A monitor or a resuscitation team in the sentence keeps the two apart.
- 7To catch and hold the attention of someone or something.
The headline arrested readers with its bold and surprising claim.
Few images arrest the eye like that famous wartime photograph.
UsageUsually with the eye or attention as its object: a photo that arrests the eye.
Similarcatch, capture, grab, grip, hold
Note
P. G. Wodehouse's My Man Jeeves (1919) praises a picture with something "bold and vigorous, which arrests the attention". The image is of a gaze stopped mid-passage. It is the same stopping as halting a body in motion, now applied to the eye.
Less common meanings
- 8
- 9In maritime law, the court-ordered holding of a ship as security for a money claim against those who operate it.
The court ordered the arrest of the tanker until the owners paid the salvage claim.
An arrest of the freighter prevented it from leaving the harbor.
Similarseizure, detention, impoundment
Oppositerelease
Note
Maritime law treats a ship much as criminal law treats a suspect: a court holds it until a claim against its operators is secured. The vessel itself is what is detained, not its crew. A phrase like "the arrest of the tanker" therefore points to a court's action, not a police raid on board.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Maritime arrest involves judicial detention of a ship to secure a financial claim against its operators. en.wiktionary.org
- Arrest of the vessel does not itself place its crew in custody. fedcourt.gov.au
- In this maritime-law sense, arrest is a judicial action. fedcourt.gov.au
- 10To bring a moving person or animal, or a moving part of the body, to a halt.
A sharp pull on the reins arrested the mare just short of the stream.
Nor could her virtues, nor repeated vows Of thousand lovers, the relentless hand Of Death arrest;
1708, [John Philips], CyderNote
Stopping a living body in its tracks is now a literary use, rare in everyday speech. Marlowe's Tamburlaine has death that "arrests the organ of my voice", and John Philips's Cyder (1708) has a "relentless hand of Death" no virtue could arrest. Doris Lessing's Martha Quest (1952) still has a man arresting Martha with a pointed pipestem as she passes. Used today, it risks sounding like police custody.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Christopher Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine. gutenberg.org
- The quotation occurs in Tamburlaine, Part I, in a speech by Cosroe. gutenberg.org
- John Philips wrote Cyder, first published in 1708. en.wikipedia.org
- Cyder describes virtues and lovers' vows failing to arrest the relentless hand of Death. eighteenthcenturypoetry.org
- Doris Lessing wrote Martha Quest, first published in 1952. en.wikipedia.org
- Mr. Van Rensberg arrests Martha's progress by pointing his pipestem at her as she passes. en.wiktionary.org
- 11Any act of seizing or laying hold, whether by bodily force or by some other kind of power.
Similarseizure
Note
A wider kind of seizing, by any power at all, that English no longer uses. Jeremy Taylor's sermons of 1651–1653 call fire from heaven and the burning of sheep "sad arrests to his troubled spirit". These are blows that take hold of the mind. A modern writer after that effect would choose seizure or grip, because arrest now makes readers think of the police.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Arrest historically meant seizing by physical or other power. en.wiktionary.org
- Jeremy Taylor's summer and winter sermon collections were first published in 1651 and 1653 respectively. en.wikipedia.org
- Taylor used the quoted phrase about distressing reports of heavenly fire and burning sheep, describing their effect on the mind. en.wiktionary.org
- 12To stay or remain in a place.
Note
To stay put was once a meaning of its own, close to Latin restō "remain behind" (see the basic "stop" sense). In John Leland's Itinerary, travel notes begun around 1538 and first printed in 1710–12, a white star seems to "lighte and arrest apon the Standard", alighting and resting there. The use is obsolete, so in modern prose write stay or rest.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Arrest formerly meant to stay or remain. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin restō means remain behind. en.wiktionary.org
- The Itinerary of John Leland was first published in 1710–12, edited by Thomas Hearne; 1538 is not its publication year. celm.folger.edu
- Leland's Itinerary describes a white star lighting and resting upon a standard, using the quoted words. melocki.org.uk
- 13A scurfy, flaky skin condition on the back part of a horse's hind leg.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English arest (noun) and aresten (verb), taken from Old French areste and arester ("to stay, stop"). These go back through Vulgar Latin to Latin ad- ("to") plus restō ("to stop, remain behind"), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *steh₂- ("to stand"). Compare modern French arrêter ("to stop").
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Arrest comes from Middle English arest and aresten, borrowed from Old French areste and arester, with the stated verb meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- The French forms trace through Vulgar Latin to Latin ad- plus restō, with the stated meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- The ultimate root is Proto-Indo-European *steh₂-, meaning to stand. en.wiktionary.org
- Modern French arrêter is related and means to stop. en.wiktionary.org