Definitions for hostage
ˈhɒs tɪdʒhostage

Princeton's WordNet(1.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. hostage, surety(noun)

   a prisoner who is held by one party to insure that another party will meet specified terms

Wiktionary(1.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. hostage(Noun)

   A person given as a pledge or security for the performance of the conditions of a treaty or stipulations of any kind, on the performance of which the person is to be released.

   Etymology: From hostage (French: otage, from hoste or obsidanus.)

Webster Dictionary(5.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Hostage(noun)

   a person given as a pledge or security for the performance of the conditions of a treaty or stipulations of any kind, on the performance of which the person is to be released

   Etymology: [OE. hostage, OF. hostage, ostage, F. tage, LL. hostaticus, ostaticum, for hospitaticum, fr. L. hospes guest, host. The first meaning is, the state of a guest, hospitality; hence, the state of a hostage (treated as a guest); and both these meanings occur in Old French. See Host a landlord.]

Freebase(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Hostage

   A hostage is a person or entity which is held by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war. However, in contemporary usage, it means someone who is seized by a criminal abductor in order to compel another party such as a relative, employer, law enforcement, or government to act, or refrain from acting, in a particular way, often under threat of serious physical harm to the hostage after expiration of an ultimatum. A person who seizes one or more hostages is known as a hostage-taker; if the hostages are present voluntarily, then the receiver is known as a host.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Hostage

   hos′tāj, n. one remaining with the enemy as a pledge for the fulfilment of the conditions of a treaty.—Hostages to fortune, a man's wife, children, &c. [O. Fr. hostage (Fr. ôtage)—Low L. obsidaticus—L. obses, obsidis, a hostage.]

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. hostage

   A person held as a pledge that certain terms or agreements will be kept. (The taking of hostages is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions, 1949.)

Dictionary of Nautical Terms(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. hostage

   A person given up to an enemy as a pledge or security for the performance of the articles of a treaty.

Suggested Resources(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. hostage

   Song lyrics by hostage -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by hostage on the Lyrics.com website.

British National Corpus

1. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'hostage' in Nouns Frequency: #2812

Anagrams for hostage »

1. she-goat

2. he-goats

How to pronounce hostage?

1. 

   Alex

   US English

   

   Daniel

   British

   

   Karen

   Australian

   

   Veena

   Indian

How to say hostage in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of hostage in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of hostage in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3

Examples of hostage in a Sentence

1. Vincent Rouget:

   This is the deadliest incident targeting the mining industry, or any private businesses, in the Sahel since the 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis.

2. Anuj Somany:

   Marriage is a cage in which a husband is kept hostage to work always under the tutelage of his wife , so only a mentally deranged man can often be seen happy to live under his bondage to a woman.

3. Julia Hallisy:

   You sound like a crazy person -- that your family member was held hostage in an American hospital, people can't believe that would happen. It's like the stuff of a science fiction story.

4. Justin Trudeau:

   We agreed that it is something that we are going to make sure we do bring up with our friends and allies around the world, we need to make sure that terrorists understand that they cannot continue to fund their crimes and their violence (by) taking innocents hostage.

5. Daniel Akbari:

   Nobody in the territory of the Iranian regime can hold one hostage for almost a decade without letting the Iranian intelligence find his location, and if a terrorist group like Al Qaeda or the Taliban had abducted him, by now, they could have asked for ransom or killed him and broadcast his beheading.

Images & Illustrations of hostage

Popularity rank by frequency of use