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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
captivity
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
breed
▪ Adults are easy to keep in aquaria for they rarely climb out if well-treated, and will breed freely in captivity.
▪ Given optimum conditions, Oscars will breed in captivity, but sexing is difficult.
▪ Few fishkeepers for whatever reason, seem interested in attempting to breed this cichlid in captivity.
▪ Many attempts have been made to breed them in captivity, however, there are flaws in this idea.
▪ To date it does not appear that this species has been bred in captivity.
▪ Tropical marine invertebrates, unlike marine fish which are notoriously difficult to successfully breed in captivity, are far more accommodating.
▪ Many campaigners feel that chimps for scientific purposes should be bred in captivity, to avoid draining the wild resources.
keep
▪ Other animals were sometimes kept in captivity, but never with much breeding success.
raise
▪ Some environmental groups maintaining that the birds should be left to their own devices rather than being raised in captivity.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Folkes says that he was held in captivity for over a year.
▪ In his autobiography, Mandela describes his life during captivity.
▪ In his book, he describes what life was like during his long captivity.
▪ The hostages are now entering their fourth week in captivity.
▪ The industrialist, who was captured on November 24th, was freed after 84 days in captivity.
▪ Wilson was released from captivity just before the end of the war.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Both these birds may have escaped from captivity.
▪ In the ocean they live to be 40, double their normal life expectancy in captivity.
▪ James was released from captivity but not from his nobles' displeasure, incited largely by the scheming Red Douglas family.
▪ Medicinal leeches in captivity can live for many years, but nobody in my local hospital knows precisely how long.
▪ One young man of John's age wrote to say that the pointlessness of his captivity had struck a chord with him.
▪ These fishes eat well in captivity, but it may take a little coaxing to get them started.
▪ To do so you would have to keep careful pedigree records of caddises bred in captivity, and breeding them is difficult.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Captivity

Captivity \Cap*tiv"i*ty\, n. [L. captivitas: cf. F. captivit['e].]

  1. The state of being a captive or a prisoner.

    More celebrated in his captivity that in his greatest triumphs.
    --Dryden.

  2. A state of being under control; subjection of the will or affections; bondage.

    Sink in the soft captivity together.
    --Addison.

    Syn: Imprisonment; confinement; bondage; subjection; servitude; slavery; thralldom; serfdom.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
captivity

late 14c., Old French *captivite or directly from Latin captivitatem (nominative captivitas), from captivus (see captive (n.)). An Old English cognate word for it was gehæftnes (see haft).

Wiktionary
captivity

n. 1 The state of being captive. 2 (context obsolete English) A group of people/beings captive. 3 The state or period of being imprisoned, confined, or enslaved.

WordNet
captivity
  1. n. the state of being imprisoned; "he was held in captivity until he died"; "the imprisonment of captured soldiers"; "his ignominious incarceration in the local jail"; "he practiced the immurement of his enemies in the castle dungeon" [syn: imprisonment, incarceration, immurement]

  2. the state of being a slave; "So every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity"--Shakespeare [syn: enslavement]

Wikipedia
Captivity

Captivity may refer to:

  • Imprisonment or hostage, the state of being confined to a space from which it is difficult or impossible to escape
    • Captive company
  • Captivity (animal), the keeping of either domesticated animals (livestock and pets) or wild animals
  • the Babylonian captivity of Judah, as described in the Bible
  • Captivity narrative a genre of stories about people being captured by "uncivilized" enemies
  • Captivity Records, a Chicago, Illinois-based independent record label.
Captivity (animal)

Animals that live under human care are in captivity. Captivity can be used as a generalizing term to describe the keeping of either domesticated animals ( livestock and pets) or wild animals. This may include, for example, farms, private homes, zoos and laboratories. Keeping animals in human captivity and under human care can thus be distinguished between three primary categories according to the particular motives, objectives and conditions.

Captivity (film)

Captivity is a 2007 horror thriller film directed by Roland Joffé, based on a screenplay by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura, and starring Elisha Cuthbert. The film centers on two people who have been abducted and driven mad.

Usage examples of "captivity".

A knight of Assisi, perhaps one of those who had been in captivity with him at Perugia, was preparing to go to Apulia under orders from Count Gentile.

They lost it in the Babylonish captivity, and never afterwards recovered it.

Thirdly, we have unquestionable proofs that, during the period from the Babylonish captivity to the advent of Christ, the Jews borrowed and adapted a great deal from the Persian theology, but no proof that the Persians took any thing from the Jewish theology.

This plainly denotes their present suffering in the Babylonish captivity, and their despair of being delivered from it.

It appears from his prayer, that he supposed the Babylonish captivity of seventy years, would terminate the chastisement of his nation.

Philippine roads, columns of unshaven, ragged, bowed Americans march to captivity from Bataan under the guns of scowling yellow dwarfs.

Harry, that Roscoes cannot breed in captivity and that Chandu the Magician is a cousin of the condor at Santa Barbara.

A warming sight after months in captivity in the pastoral wilds of New England, stately trees, broad avenues, white Congregationalist churches, blue-eyed people.

Among the other Sotharians in captivity were the old wise man or shaman of the tribe, a personage called Coph, who bore a marked resemblance to Professor Potter, being skinny and white-bearded and baldish.

They eat mainly grass and greenstuffs, so what is the harm in encouraging their multiplication in captivity?

The Prince of the Captivity was to direct his course into the heart of those great deserts which, in his flight from Hamadan, he had only skirted.

France kept the Inglesi at a distance--I know not how it is, signore, but they say the barbarians are always hardest on the enemies of Inghilterra--but, the past season a boat, from a rover had seized upon my uncle and myself and were carrying us off into captivity, when a Frenchman and his lugger rescued us.

He had contributed one of the most unusual of the exhibits which filled a glass case against a wall: the doll-size, shrunken body of his eight-year-old son, born to him during his captivity, by his Jivaro wife.

Steeley, we have all heard ACOAs and AlaTeens and ACONAs and ACOGs and WHINERS relate clear cases of different kinds of abuse: beatings, diddlings, rapes, deprivations, domineerment, humiliation, captivity, torture, excessive criticism or even just utter disinterest.

At least until Mardi Gras, when the threshold between this world and Kolasis would be thin enough to breach so that they could release the Atlantean Destroyer from captivity.