Other forms: asylums
Asylum is the protection a country grants to somebody fleeing danger. Seek asylum, grant asylum, an asylum seeker.
It is a right under the 1951 Refugee Convention for people with a well-founded fear of persecution, and an asylum seeker is somebody whose claim has not yet been decided — a refugee is somebody whose claim succeeded. The distinction is constantly blurred in public argument. The older sense is a hospital for the mentally ill, now avoided as a term. Note political asylum; and that asylum means a place that cannot be seized.
1nounasylumThe protection a country grants to somebody fleeing danger.
“The journalist was granted asylum after being threatened in his own country.”
2nountermAn old term for a hospital for the mentally ill.
“In the nineteenth century, patients were often locked away in the asylum for life.”
asylum is protection or refuge.
Latin
asȳlum
English, today
asylum
Learned borrowing from Latin asȳlum.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Crime & Law