What's the difference between detain and refrain?

Detain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To keep back or from; to withhold.
  • (v. t.) To restrain from proceeding; to stay or stop; to delay; as, we were detained by an accident.
  • (v. t.) To hold or keep in custody.
  • (n.) Detention.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They had allegedly agreed that Younous would not be charged with any crime upon his arrival there and that he would not be detained in Morocco for longer than 72 hours.
  • (2) "We do not yet live in a society where the police or any other officers of the law are entitled to detain people without reasonable justification and demand their papers," Gardiner wrote.
  • (3) A number of asylum seekers detained in the family camp on Nauru have begun peaceful protests over conditions at the centre.
  • (4) Gwendolen Morgan, the lawyer at Bindmans dealing with the case, said: "We have grave concerns about the decision to use this draconian power to detain our client for nine hours on Sunday – for what appear to be highly questionable motives, which we will be asking the high court to consider.
  • (5) He was often detained and occasionally beaten when he returned to Minsk for demonstrations, but “if he thought it was professional duty to uncover something, he did that no matter what threats were made,” Kalinkina said.
  • (6) Another source inside the centre, quoted earlier on the Detained Voices blog, said detainees had banged on their doors throughout the lockdown.
  • (7) China's best-known artist Ai Weiwei has been detained at Beijing airport this morning and police have surrounded his studio in the capital.
  • (8) But under his government the security forces killed more than 2,000 people, and an estimated 25,000 people were detained without trial and often tortured.
  • (9) As for his detention following a possible conviction … although Mr Aswat would have access to mental health services regardless of which prison he was be detained in, his extradition to a country where he had no ties and where he would face an uncertain future in an as yet undetermined institution, and possibly be subjected to the highly restrictive regime in ADX Florence, would violate article 3 of the convention."
  • (10) Filmmaker John Greyson and medic Tarek Loubani were arrested during disturbances in Cairo on 16 August, and detained without charge ever since.
  • (11) Seventeen lightly wounded were detained in the EH and 4 underwent life-saving surgery there.
  • (12) No one has been able to contact him or his friend Wen Tao, who was detained on the same day.
  • (13) The Shah's secret police – Savak – became increasingly brutal, ultimately detaining without trial and torturing tens of thousands of Iranian citizens.
  • (14) In October 2014 an Aboriginal woman died while being detained for mandatory alcohol treatment .
  • (15) Social workers were branded as communists and detained till they confessed, often after coercive treatment.
  • (16) A Tamil asylum seeker, speaking on condition on anonymity, fears being re-detained or deported: We are scared to go and meet the government.
  • (17) He was first deemed medically unfit to be detained in October, but has remained in custody.
  • (18) He was returned to Kuala Lumpur where he was detained by Malaysian immigration officials.
  • (19) I will not find out the charge until I go to trial, so I just do not know.” Fowle, a 56-year-old equipment operator for the city of Moraine, Ohio, said he was originally detained at a large tourist hotel in Pyongyang and later moved to what he described as a suite-style room in a guest house, which he did not name.
  • (20) That’s in the normal range, but should it go to 37.5 you may be whisked off to a holding centre as a suspect Ebola case, where – even if your fever is flu or more likely here, malaria – you will be detained with people who really do have this dangerously contagious virus.

Refrain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To hold back; to restrain; to keep within prescribed bounds; to curb; to govern.
  • (v. t.) To abstain from
  • (v. i.) To keep one's self from action or interference; to hold aloof; to forbear; to abstain.
  • (v.) The burden of a song; a phrase or verse which recurs at the end of each of the separate stanzas or divisions of a poetic composition.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In partial reshunting on the background of considerable improvement in hemodynamics and the general condition of the patient, one may refrain from carrying out an operation again and continue dynamik observation of the patient.
  • (2) The Kremlin has so far refrained from dealing with mounting anger against people from Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region, as well as migrant workers from central Asia, which has grown as the country's oil-fuelled economic boom has given way to the hardship of the global financial crisis.
  • (3) The son of the slain Afghan police commander (who is the husband of one of the killed pregnant woman and brother of the other) says that villagers refer to US Special Forces as the "American Taliban" and that he refrained from putting on a suicide belt and attacking US soldiers with it only because of the pleas of his grieving siblings.
  • (4) Last week he argued that properly primed immigrants will "see off the racists" - as if once blacks and Asians could conjugate their verbs properly and learn the date of the Battle of Agincourt, then racists would refrain from attacking them.
  • (5) But Rouhani can still use his position as the public face of the Islamic republic to defend Rezaian, which he has refrained from doing, at least so far.
  • (6) Both promiscuous and nonpromiscuous male homosexuals should refrain from giving blood.
  • (7) Nevertheless, because of the uncertain future of any type of implant, especially new, we have encouraged the patients to follow a careful postoperative management program and refrain from heavy activity during the first year.
  • (8) For reasons of comparison, animals were also trained in a delayed go no-go task in which visual cues instructed them to perform or refrain from an arm movement reaction to a subsequent trigger stimulus.
  • (9) And to a lesser extent in Wales ," has been a persistent refrain during the first decade in the life of the National Assembly.
  • (10) A professional technician is available for consultation on technical problems, but strictly refrains from intervening in the creative work proper.
  • (11) Alistair Burt, a Foreign Office minister, urged Libya "to respect the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, and on all sides to exercise restraint and refrain from violence".
  • (12) Nowadays, the management of the crises which accompany significant Life Events (such as birth, marriage, retirement, death...) within this new family-system, is refrained by the lack of "relays" which were previously provided by the "enlarged family".
  • (13) The latter responded with tear gas, despite orders to refrain from using chemicals against protesters.
  • (14) chi2-testing, was refrained from in view of the small number of interviewes.
  • (15) Results indicate that when the harm-doers apologized, as opposed to when they did not, the victim-subjects refrained from severe aggression against them.
  • (16) I will refrain on saying my thoughts on the National League and pitchers hitting, but all I'm saying here is that maybe it would have been more fun to see a David Oritz or Victor Martinez hitting there instead.
  • (17) If the assessment is that media coverage will be damaging, news organisations are requested to refrain from reporting.
  • (18) Refrain from detonating your little bomb,” one of the generals told the commander in charge of the test.
  • (19) Cue that familiar gloating refrain from Stoke fans when Arsenal are in town: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” they crooned.
  • (20) Media had been asked to refrain from reporting this for fear of further increasing the danger to him from his captors.