hostage

== English == === Etymology === From Middle English hostage, ostage, from Old French hostage, ostage. This, in turn, is either from Old French 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 Latin obses (“hostage, captive”), with the initial h- added under the influence of hoste or another word. Displaced native Old English ġīsl. === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈhɒs.tɪd͡ʒ/ (General American) IPA(key): /ˈhɑs.tɪd͡ʒ/ Hyphenation: hos‧tage === Noun === hostage (plural hostages) A person given as a pledge or security for the performance of the conditions of a treaty or similar agreement, such as to ensure the status of a vassal. A person seized in order to compel another party to act (or refrain from acting) in a certain way, because of the threat of harm to the hostage. Something that constrains one's actions because it is at risk. One who is compelled by something, especially something that poses a threat; one who is not free to choose their own course of action. The condition of being held as security or to compel someone else to act or not act in a particular way. 1953, New York (State) Court of Appeals, New York Court of Appeals. Records and Briefs, page 37: Technically speaking, the Arnold infant was not "kidnapped" at all. Rather was she seized and held in hostage. The defendant "carried" no one away. It is true that for a brief space of time he "detained" the Arnold infant in the garage, but this act, in and of itself, does not constitute "kidnapping" in the legal sense of the word, since, in reality, he was holding her "in hostage"—as a pledge, or shield, or guarantee of his own safety. The appellant, who had spent some time in the armed forces[,] seized the child and "held her in hostage", just as prisoners of war are held in hostage. 2011 October 25, Douglas W. Allen, The Institutional Revolution, Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World, University of Chicago Press, unpaged: The concept of “lordship” was deeper and survived longer on the Continent. On every dimension, one could argue, they engaged in less hostage capital. It is not surprising then that their wealth levels did not match those in Britain. ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === Verb === hostage (third-person singular simple present hostages, present participle hostaging, simple past and past participle hostaged) (possibly nonstandard) To give (someone or something) as a hostage to (someone or something else). 2003, Shirley Mask Connolly, Kashubia to Canada: Crossing on the Agda : an Emigration Story, page 16, quoting some earlier work: " […] in voting the prolongation of the military budget on a war estimate for a span of three years, contemplates, it is said, a speedy reoccupation of the six departments of France which were hostaged to the Germans at the termination of the war." (possibly nonstandard) To hold (someone or something) hostage, especially in a way that constrains or controls the person or thing held, or in order to exchange for something else. === References === “hostage”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “hostage”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC. === Further reading === hostage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia === Anagrams === he-goats, she-goat == Old French == === Etymology === hoste +‎ -age === Noun === hostage oblique singular, m (oblique plural hostages, nominative singular hostages, nominative plural hostage) hostage ==== Descendants ==== → English: hostage French: otage