prisoner

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

People held in prison
cellmate
co-prisoner
con
convict
dead
dead man walkingidiom
detainee
detenu
gaolbird
hostage
inmate
internee
jailbird
lag
lifer
political prisoner
pow
prisoner
prisoner of conscience
prisoner of war
captive
adjective
uk /ˈkæp.tɪv/ us /ˈkæp.tɪv/
(of a person or an animal) having limited ability to move or act freely because of being kept in a space:
Wildlife officials say double fences would help prevent the spread of disease between wild and captive animals.
If it is successful, captive breeding could restore the population to 200 in seven years.
(of a prisoner) held by the enemy during a war:
The government handed him over to rebels in return for captive soldiers.
News that the soldiers were captive after being held at gunpoint caused panic.
The ponds will be stocked with small fish that will be fed to captive birds.
The vaccine has already been tested on captive herds of deer.
It's a famous tale about forbidden love between an Egyptian military leader and a captive African princess.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Lack of freedom to act
be in bondage to somethingidiom
be locked in something
bondage
bound
boxed in
disenfranchisement
heel
lock
non-voluntary
nonindependence
oppressed
servitude
shackle
someone's hands are tiedidiom
tethered
thumb
tie
tie someone to something/someone
tool
unfreedom

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

People held in prison

captive | American Dictionary

captive
noun[ C ]
us/ˈkæp·tɪv/
a prisoner, esp. a person held by the enemy during a war

captivity

noun[ U ]us/kæpˈtɪv·ɪ·t̬i/
Most animals bred in captivity would probably not survive in the wild.
captive
adjective, adverb
us/ˈkæp·tɪv/
(being) without the ability to escape:
The soldiers were held captive for three months.
When selling to people in their homes, you’ve got a captive audience (= people who cannot leave).

captive | Business English

captive
adjective[ before noun ]
 COMMERCEuk /ˈkæptɪv/us
not having a choice about what services, goods, etc. you buy because there is only one or there are only a few available in the place where you are:
In the cinema, advertisers know that they have a captive audience.
Long-distance airline passengers are the perfect captive market.
Utility companies could be fined for overcharging captive customers or undercharging consumers who have a choice of supplier.

Examples of captive

captive
On average, the homeland of captives was located just under 106 miles from the point of embarkation (number l 879, standard deviation l 61n7).
After 1808, in the trade as a whole 68n4 per cent of captives were male and 42n6 per cent were children on average.
In contrast to the monuments, on the vases bound live captives are never depicted lying supine.
Figures given the smallest amount of total horizontal space are captives, servants, and children.
French officials were forced to intervene to ensure the return of captives on at least one occasion.
Most likely, they were war captives representing different ethnic groups and/or social classes.
The rationale for such collusion has been hypothesized above as one involving a correlation between the interests of captors and captives.
However, the behavior of captives, who are influenced by human caretakers and artificial environments, is irrelevant here.
Through judicious techniques of estimation, the editors have projected that some 7 million captives were aboard the vessels in the database.
Sweet handles his riches with the care they deserve, writing a true ' page turner ', which provides heart-wrenching details about the experiences of individual captives.
Furthermore, demographic growth was primarily achieved by integrating captives.
By stepping on the captives, the military victories of the rulers were reenacted.
Even then, the social and ecological environment of the captives is far from natural.
She balances the captives' historic perspective with a culturally sensitive synopsis of the captors.
While this report identifies cattle and salt as items exchanged for captives, cowrie shells were probably more important.
See all examples of captive
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.