Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or condition of containing.
  • noun A policy of checking the expansion or influence of a hostile power or ideology, as by the creation of strategic alliances or support of client states in areas of conflict or unrest.
  • noun A structure or system designed to prevent the accidental release of radioactive materials from a reactor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That which is contained or comprised; extent; contents.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete That which is contained; the extent; the substance.
  • noun the act of containing.
  • noun (Diplomacy) the act or policy of restricting the influence or territorial growth of a hostile nation.
  • noun the act of restricting some deleterious substance within a confined space, especially when such material is released unintentionally or by accident. Also used attributively, as a containment boom.
  • noun a structure surrounding a nuclear power plant designed to prevent release of radioactive materials into the environment in the event of an accident.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the act of containing or something contained
  • noun a policy of checking the expansion of a hostile foreign power by creating alliances with other states; especially the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War
  • noun a physical system designed to prevent the accidental release of radioactive or other dangerous materials from a nuclear reactor or industrial plant.
  • noun mathematics an inclusion

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of containing; keeping something from spreading
  • noun (physics) a system designed to prevent the accidental release of radioactive material from a reactor
  • noun a policy of creating strategic alliances in order to check the expansion of a hostile power or ideology or to force it to negotiate peacefully

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

contain +‎ -ment

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Examples

  • But the term containment was originally created by State Department analyst George Kennan to describe the necessity for strong measures including the use of military force to prevent the spread of Soviet communism.

    Up the Revolution: U.S. Should Back Iran's Dissidents 2011

  • You use the term "containment" to describe the group who oppose a very strong policy of preventing Iran from obtaining the capability e.g., air strikes to destroy facilities.

    Up the Revolution: U.S. Should Back Iran's Dissidents 2011

  • And what we do is we through the natural flow of the river, some of that oil collects up in the bends up against the shore and in some cases we use what we call containment booms to actually draw the oil into close to shore, so we can actually capture it using vacuum trucks and manual labor to actually get in there and collect it.

    CNN Transcript Jul 27, 2008 2008

  • But if worst comes to worst, there are what he calls containment rooms.

    Invasion Cook, Robin, 1940- 2000

  • And if those descendants do not have all of the defining characteristics of the ancestor then containment is lost.

    A New Book 2010

  • If early containment is successful, the damages from this accident will be in the tens of billions.

    Oil! « Gerry Canavan 2010

  • One of the problems with containment is that lines were drawn at this event on roads (Cannon St and side streets) when the action was quite some distance away.

    Met Wiot Police Are Too Wuff « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • ‘At this time containment is not a feasible option,’ he said.

    Is Swine Flu source leaked military weapon? 2009

  • Contaminated soil and rubble in the areas surrounding the Fukushima reactors have been piled up and abandoned while the government struggles to find a long-term containment area.

    Japan, Vietnam to Move Forward on Nuclear Deal Toko Sekiguchi 2011

  • Once containment is lost so is the nested hierarchy.

    A New Book 2010

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