captive

American  

[kap-tiv] / ˈkæp tɪv /

noun

• captives
  plural

1. a prisoner.

2. a person who is enslaved or dominated.

   He is the captive of his own fears.

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adjective

1. made or held prisoner, especially in war.

   captive troops.

2. kept in confinement or restraint.

   captive animals.

3. enslaved by love, beauty, etc.; captivated.

   her captive beau.

4. of or relating to a captive.

5. managed as an affiliate or subsidiary of a corporation and operated almost exclusively for the use or needs of the parent corporation rather than independently for the general public.

   a captive shop;

   a captive mine.

captive British  

/ ˈkæptɪv /

noun

1. a person or animal that is confined or restrained, esp a prisoner of war

2. a person whose behaviour is dominated by some emotion

   a captive of love

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adjective

1. held as prisoner

2. held under restriction or control; confined

   captive water held behind a dam

3. captivated; enraptured

4. unable by circumstances to avoid speeches, advertisements, etc (esp in the phrase captive audience )

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• noncaptive
  adjective
• pseudocaptive
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• captives
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of captive

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English or directly from Middle French, from Latin captīvus, equivalent to capt(us) “taken” (past participle of capere “to take”) + -īvus adjective suffix ( see -ive)

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Explanation

A captive is something that has been captured and can’t escape, like a prisoner of war or a panda in a zoo. To be captured on the battlefield, and held captive is not so great, but captive doesn’t always describe things that are completely bad, like its synonym, hostage. If you fall in love you might say your heart is being held captive. Ideas that entrance you could be called captivating. Sometimes endangered animals are brought into captivity in order to breed larger populations, and then released into the wild.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

captive captives

According to the UK Government's official website, external, the movement of captive birds from Britain to Northern Ireland requires an export health certificate.

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026

From November onwards, all captive birds at Castle Espie will be transferred to other WWT sites across the UK.

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026

Put into shackles and forced to labor in the limestone quarries of Syracuse, the captive characters speak in a working-class Dublin dialect.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

By placing a tether around captive moths and projecting stars on the wall, researchers last year showed how Bogongs used the Milky Way.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

This is his theory: the owl we held as a temporary captive memorized our floor plan so it could find its way back through a window and consume her soul.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Though the first African slaves in Virginia arrived in 1619, comparatively few black captives came to the English colonies of the North American mainland during the period covered in “Contested Continent.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

The freed captives are currently receiving medical treatment at an undisclosed hospital and will return home at a later date, army spokesman Danjuma Jonah Danjuma said in a statement issued on Friday evening.

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026

Because the country had far less captives, they paid Karamanli $60,000, worth roughly $1.7 million today, but the yearly duties did stop, so there’s that.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026

But somewhere along the line, economics was all but consumed by math, and things everybody had always known—that humans are fickle, emotional, bad at reasoning, captives of their prior mistakes, etc.—were forgotten or cast aside.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025

As she stood thus, deep in meditation, the captives were led in.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

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Related Words

• detainee
• hostage
• prisoner
• prisoner of war
• slave

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