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asylum

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Etymology

From Latin asylum, from Ancient Greek ἄσυλον (ásulon).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /əˈsaɪləm/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪləm

Noun

asylum (countable and uncountable, plural asylums or asyla)

  1. A place of safety or refuge.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 295:
      All the busy concerns of daily existence were utterly abhorrent to me. I loathed the sound of others' voices—I hated to be mixed up with their petty routine of ordinary cares; here was an asylum offered to me—here I might lay down all the offices of humanity, and dwell beside that grave whose rest was now my only desire.
  2. (uncountable) The protection, physical and legal, afforded by such a place (as, for example, for political refugees).
  3. (dated) A place of protection or restraint for one or more classes of the disadvantaged, especially the mentally ill.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

asylum (third-person singular simple present asylums, present participle asyluming, simple past and past participle asylumed) (dated)

  1. to place in an asylum
    • 1913, Marie Belloc Lowndes, chapter III, in Studies in Love & in Terror, page 144:
      It was she who in the last few years had spread abroad the notion that Charles Nagle, in the public interest, should be asylumed.
  2. to grant protection or refuge
    • 1887, 6th Annual Session Baptist Congress:
      We have..sheltered its paupers, asylumed its orphans, clothed its nakedness.

See also

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Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἄσυλον (ásulon).

Pronunciation

Noun

asȳlum n (genitive asȳlī); second declension

  1. asylum (place of refuge), sanctuary
    Synonyms: perfugium, latebra, receptāculum, tēctum, refugium, dēverticulum

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

More information singular, plural ...

Descendants

  • Catalan: asil
  • → English: asylum
  • French: asile
  • Galician: asilo
  • → German: Asyl
  • Italian: asilo
  • Occitan: asil
  • Portuguese: asilo
  • Romanian: azil
  • Spanish: asilo

References

  • “asylum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “asylum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “asylum”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • “asylum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “asylum”, in Samuel Ball Platner (1929), Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press
  • “asylum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
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