custody
- 1The legal right to care for someone or something, especially a child.
The court awarded joint custody to both parents.
She fought for custody of her younger siblings after their parents died.
Similarguardianship, care
Note
Behind every sense of custody is Latin custōdia, "a keeping, watch, guard, prison", from custōs, "a keeper, watchman"; English also borrowed custode from the same source. In family law the word depends on its verbs. A court awards custody to a parent, and a parent gains custody of a child. Joint custody divides that right between two people.
- 2The condition of being imprisoned or detained, usually while awaiting trial.
He was held in custody for three weeks before the hearing.
The protesters were released from custody the following morning.
Similardetention, imprisonment, confinement
Note
Here the "prison" inside Latin custōdia comes through most plainly. Although the word usually means detention before trial, courts also use it after conviction. The Southern Reporter, Second Series (1958) speaks of release from custody "under sentence to five years imprisonment." The usual frames are in custody and in police custody, and people are held in, or released from, custody.
- 3Temporary possession or care of property belonging to someone else.
The bank holds the deeds in custody until the loan is repaid.
He left the rare coins in the custody of a trusted friend.
Similarsafekeeping, care, keeping, charge
- 4A territorial division within the Order of Friars Minor, placed under the authority of a custos.
The new custody was carved out of the larger province.
Each custody reported to the minister provincial through its custos.
Note
The friars' title explains the word. A custos, Latin for "keeper", governs this unit, and his territory is his custody. It ranks below a province and was used historically where friaries were too few to form one. Unlike the legal right, this is a countable noun naming a place: a custody, or the Custody of the Holy Land, capitalized as a formal name.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Latin custōdia ("a keeping, watch, guard, prison"), from custōs ("a keeper, watchman, guard"). It is a doublet of custode.