sanitarium
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sanitarium
1850–55; < Latin sānit ( ās ) health ( see sanity) + -ārium -ary
Explanation
In the past, someone who was recovering from a long-term illness might stay at a sanitarium, a special kind of hospital. Many sanitariums in the U.S. once treated patients with tuberculosis. A sanitarium was also often called a sanatorium. Even more confusingly, both words were sometimes used to mean "health resort," something closer to a spa than a hospital. Before antibiotics were invented, the most effective treatment for tuberculosis and other lung diseases was fresh air and healthy food at a sanitarium. The word is rooted in the Latin sanitas, "health."
Vocabulary lists containing sanitarium
Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
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The Pigman
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The Pecan Sheller
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But there it was, the Long Beach Sanitarium, another one run along Battle Creek methods, employing mysterious techniques advertised as “electrical and Mechanical Swedish departments.”
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 30, 2022
It's little wonder many visitors to Battle Creek Sanitarium woreloincloths that resembled diapers.
From Salon • May 7, 2022
Hall would check into the Columbus Sanitarium — which later became Cabrini Hospital — at the corner of Madison and Boren Streets and died two days later.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 25, 2021
Kellogg preached to adherents at his then-famous health resort Battle Creek Sanitarium that producing at least three, and much better four, bowel movements a day ought to be the norm.
From Slate • Aug. 23, 2021
Feeling unable to face the people who had known her in the Station, she departed the next morning for Muktiarbad, leaving her infantile charge and its ayah to the tender mercies of the Sanitarium.
From Banked Fires by Savi, E. W. (Ethel Winifred)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
