From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcommittalcom‧mit‧tal /kəˈmɪtl/ noun [countable, uncountable] 1 SCLthe process in which a court sends someone to a mental hospital or prison2 formalMX the burying or cremating of a dead person
Examples from the Corpus
committal• The first is that Form N111 was used as a committal order rather than Form N79.• Arrangements for committal proceedings should be reviewed, and short term imprisonment discouraged as being expensive and of little reformative value.• There was no possibility of his being able to purge his contempt within a short time of his committal.• He was granted bail by magistrates on his committal for trial.• You merely listen in a non committal way.• The judge went on to say that they had notices of committal and that they had removed themselves from the jurisdiction.• He was released on conditional bail pending committal proceedings.• The court itself took the point that the committal was invalid and quashed a sentence of 18 months' imprisonment. 