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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
hostage
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
hold sb prisoner/hostage/captive
▪ A senior army officer was held hostage for four months.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
other
▪ Where was the intuitive faith of the wives and lovers of those other hostages in Beirut?
▪ So it was with the other hostages.
▪ As you all know, he is now free and we hope the other hostages will soon be free too.
western
▪ It was simply guesswork that it was in that place that some of the Western hostages were kept.
■ NOUN
crisis
▪ Rafsanjani's desire to act on the hostage crisis was tied to domestic concerns.
▪ Together, Minnig and Cipriani carry the hopes for a peaceful resolution of the hostage crisis here.
▪ President Bush is being widely praised for his deft handling of the hostage crisis.
▪ The long-term impact of the crisis will likely be determined by the outcome of the hostage crisis.
▪ An impasse in the hostage crisis had been reached, to continue through the summer of 1980.
negotiator
▪ After hostage negotiators heard the gunshot over the phone, police waited about a half hour before entering the home.
situation
▪ All hostage situations are dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
■ VERB
free
▪ They freed their hostages, including the ambassador, and left the embassy peacefully on Oct. 7.
▪ A deal to free the hostages fell through, apparently because their release would have left the rebels without bargaining power.
hold
▪ Gen. Oscar Florendo, who was being held hostage by the rebels.
▪ Putin is being held hostage by his generals.
▪ Yet, the Republican Party is being held hostage by the religious zealots.
▪ She was out, so he held three women staff hostage until he allowed two policemen to take their place.
▪ But Havel also has preached that the country must not be held hostage to its past.
▪ He then called 911 to tell police he was holding the hostages.
▪ We are all held hostage to each other in this nation.
kill
▪ Mr Speight has allegedly threatened to kill the hostages if an armed rescue mission is mounted.
▪ Fierce fighting continued amid rebel threats to kill hostages.
▪ No one has thought through what happens when a group of private contractors are killed or taken hostage.
release
▪ The gunmen released most hostages and headed for Chechnya with the rest after receiving a promise of safe passage.
▪ Smith released the hostages, but remained in the house.
▪ On 26 July 1986 Father Lawrence Jenco was released after being held hostage for 18 months.
▪ Newly released hostage Frank Reed declares from his hospital balcony that he is looking forward to a three-pound Maine lobster.
▪ As a precaution they recently released 40 of their hostages, in case they were carrying the disease.
remain
▪ In the opinion of most, however customer service and quality remained hostage to the lack of cooperation from the functional heads.
rescue
▪ But increasingly Waite had become involved in his attempts to rescue hostages held in the Middle East.
▪ Carter also gave a go-ahead for a military attempt to rescue the hostages.
▪ President Carter displayed considerable restraint in the crisis until an attempt was made in April 1980 to rescue the hostages by force.
▪ Carter ordered the Pentagon to prepare a contingency plan for military action to rescue the hostages.
take
▪ After Aegidius's death, Odovacer took hostages from Angers.
▪ The suspect, Myron Bowers, 36, was captured with the help of a man he briefly took hostage.
▪ The heavily armed gunmen initially took 24 hostages, but later released 14.
▪ No one has thought through what happens when a group of private contractors are killed or taken hostage.
▪ Mrs Rees's daughter Leanne was taken hostage in the house.
▪ Later, Cyrus and Poe must stop Johnny from raping a female prison official whom the prisoners have taken hostage.
▪ The seige ended peacefully and Yacoub was later charged with taking hostages and with illegal possession of a firearm.
▪ One unconfirmed report said Hamilton had intended to take the children hostage but that his plan went awry.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A British journalist was held hostage for over four years.
▪ An attempt to rescue the American hostages ended in disaster when a helicopter crashed.
▪ The group has threatened to kill the hostages unless the government frees 15 political prisoners.
▪ The medical team were captured and taken hostage.
▪ The terrorists say that they will kill the hostages if we don't agree to their demands.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For a politician to have a clear objective is to offer hostages to his opponents.
▪ Later, Cyrus and Poe must stop Johnny from raping a female prison official whom the prisoners have taken hostage.
▪ The government radio said 32 hostages had been released by 11 a. m., but that could not be confirmed.
▪ They may then have been required to give hostages as a guarantee of future good behaviour.
▪ We must exchange hostage for hostage.
▪ When in residence, their occupants were under surveillance; when absent, they left their families as hostages.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hostage

Hostage \Hos"tage\, n. [OE. hostage, OF. hostage, ostage, F. [^o]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.] 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.

Your hostages I have, so have you mine; And we shall talk before we fight.
--Shak.

He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.
--Bacon.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
hostage

late 13c., from Old French hostage "person given as security or hostage" (12c., Modern French ôtage), either from hoste "guest" (see host (n.1)) via notion of "a lodger held by a landlord as security," or from Late Latin obsidanus "condition of being held as security," from obses "hostage," from ob- "before" + base of sedere "to sit" [OED]. Modern political/terrorism sense is from 1970.

Wiktionary
hostage

n. 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.

WordNet
hostage

n. a prisoner who is held by one party to insure that another party will meet specified terms [syn: surety]

Wikipedia
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 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(s) 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.

Hostage (film)

Hostage is a 2005 American action thriller drama film produced by and starring Bruce Willis and directed by Florent Emilio Siri. The film was based on a novel by Robert Crais, and was adapted for the screen by Doug Richardson.

The film earned mixed to negative reviews and was not a financial success on its original release, earning only slightly more than its production costs.

Hostage (Rez Band album)

Hostage is the sixth studio album, from American Christian rock band Resurrection Band (known at this time as "Rez Band"), released in late 1984.

Hostage (novel)

Hostage is a 2001 thriller novel by Robert Crais, set in fictional Bristo Bay, California, about a small town police chief named Jeff Talley with memories of a failed hostage situation, who must negotiate the same type of situation in his own town if he wants his own family to live.

Hostage (disambiguation)

A hostage is a person or entity held by a captor.

Hostage, The Hostage or Hostages may also refer to:

Hostage (electronic musician)

Hostage, is a Scottish electronic music producer. He is currently signed to British talent agency Primary Talent International and is affiliated with various record labels, most notably Black Butter Records.

Hostage is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Hostage (1983 film)

Hostage is a 1983 Australian film based on the true story of Christine Maresch, a Wollongong teenager who wound up married to a German bank robber.

Hostage (1974 film)

Hostage (Persian title: Gerowgan- ) is a 1974 Iranian Persian-genre drama Romantic film directed by Ahmad Shirazi and starring Afrouz, Reza Beyk Imanverdi, Morteza Aghili, Shanaz Tehrani, Ali Azad, Nematollah Gorji, and Ali Miri .

Hostage (Charles Bukowski album)

Hostage is a 1985 spoken word and poetry album by Charles Bukowski. The single track was recorded live at Redondo Beach, California in April 1980.

Usage examples of "hostage".

The hostage ships themselves were accelerating forward, their dark shapes backlit by blue halos of ion glow.

The rest had been shot and slashed to pieces by Afghani tribesmen, the women with them killed or taken hostage.

But out there, the ships were real, capable of annihilating Corrin in yet another atomic attack, once they passed the Bridge and killed all the hostages aboard.

Bahzell had hostage right to carry his personal weapons whenever he chose, but one sight of the arbalest by any sentry would raise questions he dared not answer, and he hesitated, loath to abandon it, then whirled as the door opened silently once more.

Fifty more hostages will be shot in case the guilty should not be arrested between now and October 23 by midnight.

Suspecting a concerted movement among the hostages, by which they would cooperate with the assailing foe without, the officer in command of the fort gave orders to secure them with irons.

He said he wanted the Norrington kept close to work with Beal on the hostage rescue, but both of them knew risking Will on a scouting mission was stupid.

They would use the kids as hostages and boogie to the border in that big flashy Jaguar with the helicopters broadcasting every moment of the trip on live TV.

Officially, Brod was a hostage, taken by the women reavers to ensure cooperation by the sailors of the ship they had hired, the Reckless.

Hero Buss had not seen Diana after the first week, but there had been a constant exchange of news among the guards and the people who ran the houses, which filtered down to the hostages, and he knew that Diana was well.

We were very ignorant indeed, he said, for some had made him a Chian, others a native of Smyrna, others of Colophon, but that after all he was a Babylonian, and amongst them was called Tigranes, though, after being a hostage in Greece, they had changed his name to Homer.

He would be thrown to the fish, and she carried off to Darre as a hostage.

Secondly, any aerial approach will probably result in Electro taking retaliatory action directly against his hostages, probably by firing explosive energy bolts at the automobiles.

The talk at Gaillard was of battles and hostages, taxes and levies, of ransom, of the famine and hard times that war had brought to the provinces of the Angevins, and, more than all, of the persistent treachery and menace of the Franks As the castle uplifted its mass against the sky, Plantagenet policy with respect to this menace took shape and became mamfest.

He and Pamela would have hostage value for negotiations if nothing else, and Hsiao did not seem to Tombstone to be the sort of man who would throw away any advantage, however small.