Hostage

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈhɒs.tɪd͡ʒ/

Definitions

1. A person held captive by another as security for fulfilling demands or as leverage in negotiations
2. A person seized and held as security or leverage to compel compliance with demands or negotiations
3. An individual detained by force as a bargaining tool to ensure another party meets specified conditions or terms

Etymology: The word "hostage" carries a surprising double inheritance: it may have begun as a simple suffix joke about hospitality. One possible origin is Old French "hoste" ("host" or guest) with the suffix "-age," so that the term first meant something like being taken into someone's lodging. The sense then slid from being lodged as a guest to being held as a captive, and the term was eventually applied to the captive person himself. The other possible route runs through Vulgar Latin "obsidāticum," meaning "condition of being held captive," from Latin "obses," "hostage" or "captive," with an initial h- attached later under the influence of "hoste." Scholars cannot settle which path is correct, so the true origin remains open. Either way, English already had a native word for this idea. Old English "gīsl" meant a hostage, but Middle English "hostage" pushed it out of common use, leaving the old word behind in the name of Gisela-style personal names and in the dialect term "gisel."

Synonyms: prisoner, captor, victim, captive, sacrificial victim

Antonyms: rescuer, savior, liberator