Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CON-FINE'MENT, n.

1. Restraint within limits; imprisonment; any restraint of liberty by force or other obstacle or necessity; as, the confinement of a debtor or criminal to a prison, or of troops to a besieged town.
2. Voluntary restraint; seclusion; as, the confinement of a man to his house, or to his studies.
3. Voluntary restraint in action or practice; as, confinement to a particular diet.
4. Restraint from going abroad by sickness, particularly by child-birth.