hostage

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: hŏsʹtĭj

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology

From Old French hostage (French: otage, from hoste or Late Latin obsidanus.)

Noun

Wikipedia hostage (plural hostages)

1. 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.

Translations

person given as a pledge or security

Arabic: رهين (Ra-h'in) Catalan: ostatge (ca) m. and f. Chinese: Mandarin: 俘虜 (zh), 俘虏 (zh) (fúlǔ), 人質 (zh), 人质 (zh) (rénzhì) Croatian: tálac (hr) m. Czech: rukojmí (cs) n. Dutch: gijzelaar (nl) m. Esperanto: ostaĝo (eo) Finnish: panttivanki (fi) French: otage (fr) m. German: Geisel (de) f. Hebrew: בן ערובה (he) (ben aruba) m., בת ערובה (he) (bat aruba) f. Hungarian: túsz (hu)

Interlingua: hostage (ia), ostage (ia) Japanese: hitojichi (ja) Korean: 인질 (人質) (ko) (injil) Norwegian: gissel (no) n. Old English: gīsel (ang) m. Polish: zakładnik (pl) m., zakładniczka (pl) f. Portuguese: refém (pt) m. and f. Romanian: ostatic (ro) m., ostatică (ro) f. Russian: заложник (ru) (zalóžnik) m. Serbian: taoc, talac Spanish: rehén (es) m. and f. Swedish: gisslan (sv) c. Turkish: rehine (tr)

See also

• give hostage to fortune

Anagrams

• he-goats
• she-goat

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Old French

Etymology

Latin hospitalis. Etymologically related to hôpital.

Noun

hostage m. (oblique plural hostages, nominative singular hostages, nominative plural hostage)

1. hostage

Descendants

• English: hostage
• French: otage