hostage
UK[ˈhɒstɪdʒ]US[ˈhɑːstɪdʒ]
n
A person who is captured and held prisoner by a person or group, who threatens to kill or harm them if their demands are not met.
n
A person or thing that is in a situation where they are not free to act as they wish because they depend on something else.
Morpheme Breakdown
host
age
host
stranger, enemy
age
state, condition
Etymology
The word 'hostage' originates from the Old French ostage, which itself derived from Late Latin obsidaticum, meaning "condition of being a hostage". This Latin term is based on obses (genitive obsidis), meaning "hostage". The fascinating semantic journey lies in the root host-, which in Latin (hospes) held the dual and opposing meanings of "host" and "guest/stranger". In the context of 'hostage', it is the latter, more adversarial sense of "stranger" or "enemy captive" that was retained. The suffix -age concretizes this into a state of being. Thus, the literal construction means "the state or condition of being a captive stranger," which evolved into its modern meaning of a person held as security for the fulfillment of a demand.
Analysis
Structure: host (stranger, enemy) + age (state, condition)
- host: From Old French hoste, from Latin hospes (guest, host, stranger). In this compound, it carries the older sense of "stranger" or "enemy captive".
- age: A suffix forming nouns from other nouns or adjectives, from Old French -age, from Latin -aticum, denoting a state, condition, or function.
Examples
The militants took three foreign journalists hostage.
The successful rescue operation freed all the hostages unharmed.
She felt like a hostage to her high-paying but miserable job.