hostage

UK/ˈhɒs.tɪd͡ʒ/US/ˈhɑs.tɪd͡ʒ/

nounB2Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,910 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: hostages

A hostage is a person held by criminals until their demands are met. Take hostages, hostage negotiation, released the hostage.

Negotiators are trained to stretch time deliberately, because the longer a standoff runs the better the outcomes tend to be. Figuratively, to be held hostage to something is to be unable to act because of it. Note hostage to fortune, a phrase from Bacon for a commitment that can be used against you later.

Definitions of hostage

1nounhostageA person held until demands are met.B2
“The gunmen took the bank staff hostage and threatened to hurt them.”

hostage is a captive.

Where it comes from

Old French ostage may come from a word for lodging or from Latin obses, a hostage. The two accounts have never been fully settled.

Vulgar Latin
obsidāticum — condition of being held captive
Old French
hostage
Middle English
hostage
English, today
hostage

Built from

hoste · Old French — host
obses · Latin — hostage, captive

From Middle English hostage, ostage, from Old French hostage, ostage. This, in turn, is either from hoste (“host”) + -age (in which case the sense development is from taking someone into "lodging" to taking them into "captivity", to applying the term to a captive), or is from Vulgar Latin obsidāticum (“condition of being held captive”), from obses (“hostage, captive”), with the initial h- added under the influence of hoste or another word. Displaced native Old English ġīsl.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Crime & Law

Practise this word

hostage in the wild

As Iran hostage crisis negotiations dragged out and did not secure the release of the remaining hostages, Carter approved Operation Eagle Claw on April 24, 1980.
Iran hostage crisis
The AIA Building hostage crisis took place at the AIA (American Insurance Associates) Building in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 5 August 1975.
1975 AIA building hostage crisis
The Japanese Red Army took more than 50 hostages at the AIA building, which housed several embassies.
1975 AIA building hostage crisis
On July 19, 2007, a group of 23 South Korean missionaries were captured and held hostage by members of the Taliban while passing through Ghazni Province of Afghanistan.
2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan
Later, with negotiations making progress, two women, Kim Gyeong-ja and Kim Ji-na, were released on August 13, and the remaining 19 hostages on August 29 and 30.
2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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