What does hostage mean?
Definitions for hostage
ˈhɒs tɪdʒhostage
Here are all the possible meanings and translations of the word hostage.
Princeton's WordNet
hostage, surety(noun)
a prisoner who is held by one party to insure that another party will meet specified terms
Wiktionary
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
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
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
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
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
hostage
A person given up to an enemy as a pledge or security for the performance of the articles of a treaty.
Suggested Resources
hostage
Song lyrics by hostage -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by hostage on the Lyrics.com website.
British National Corpus
Nouns Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'hostage' in Nouns Frequency: #2812
Anagrams for hostage »
she-goat
he-goats
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of hostage in Chaldean Numerology is: 1
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of hostage in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3
Examples of hostage in a Sentence
This is the deadliest incident targeting the mining industry, or any private businesses, in the Sahel since the 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Popularity rank by frequency of use
Translations for hostage
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- رهينArabic
- ostatgeCatalan, Valencian
- rukojmíCzech
- gidselDanish
- GeiselGerman
- όμηροςGreek
- ostaĝoEsperanto
- rehénSpanish
- گروگانPersian
- panttivankiFinnish
- otageFrench
- geall, banna, giall, bráIrish
- refén, arrafénGalician
- raaneManx
- בן ערובה, בת ערובהHebrew
- बंधकHindi
- túszHungarian
- ostage, hostageInterlingua
- sanderaIndonesian
- ostaggioItalian
- 人質Japanese
- მძევალიGeorgian
- 인질, 人質, 볼모Korean
- tebusanMalay
- gijzelaarDutch
- gisselNorwegian
- zakładnik, zakładniczkaPolish
- refémPortuguese
- ostatic, ostaticăRomanian
- заложникRussian
- taoc, talacSerbo-Croatian
- gisslanSwedish
- rehineTurkish
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"hostage." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 25 Feb. 2021. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/hostage>.