Remand

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈmɑːnd/

Definitions

1. To place a person under custody again before their trial begins ; to return a legal case to a lower court for further action
2. To keep someone in jail while awaiting trial or further hearing ; to send a court decision back to a previous level for review or reconsideration
3. To detain a defendant temporarily prior to trial ; to instruct a lower court to reconsider or continue handling a case

Etymology: The legal sense of "remand" begins with a simple act of sending something back. In Late Latin, "remandare" meant "to send backward," built from "re-" (back) and "mandare" (to order, entrust), the same root that gives English "mandate." Middle French then took it as "remander," still meaning only to send back, and Middle English adopted it as "remaunden" with that same literal sense. The jump to custody happened through the courts. A case could be sent back from a higher authority to a lower one, or a prisoner sent back into the hands of an officer to await further proceedings, and that is where the word's modern meaning of holding someone in custody took root. The physical image of dispatching a person or matter backward became an institutional one. Its close relative "countermand," meaning to revoke an order, shows the same "mandare" root working in the opposite direction: "counter-" sets the order against itself, while "re-" simply sends it back.

Synonyms: recommit, send back

Antonyms: release, discharge