sanitarium
Americannoun
-
sanitariums,
plural
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sanitaria
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected 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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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.
See Examples For:
In the late 1890s, John Harvey Kellogg, the director of a Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich., wanted a vegetarian breakfast alternative to the bacon and eggs his clients were accustomed to.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
He made it to the sanitarium in time.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2023
I have always loved the idea of a sanitarium: Swaddle me in blankets like a chic burrito, please, and tilt my deck chair toward the Swiss Alps or whatever hills you’ve got.
From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2023
Among them was a TB sanitarium that became the seed for today’s City of Hope, the renowned cancer treatment and research center.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 29, 2022
It faced in the direction of Bellevue, the sanitarium where Mary Todd Lincoln was forced to stay for a while in the 1870s.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
For the sake of the good opinion society would maintain of itself, it sends the latter nowadays to hospitals, sanitaria, or their equivalents, where protection for itself without punishment for them may be practised.
From The Glands Regulating Personality by Louis Berman M.D.
A similar disregard for drainage has ingeniously managed to convert into pest-houses Simla and other Himalayan sanitaria.
From The Land of Midian — Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
Other trained nurses become matrons and housekeepers in private hospitals, sanitaria, and colleges.
From The Canadian Girl at Work A Book of Vocational Guidance by Lady Marjory MacMurchy Willison
The Greeks built combination temples and sanitaria, to which the afflicted resorted.
From Maintaining Health Formerly Health and Efficiency by R. L. Alsaker
Now—only just now—the physicians are doing the same, and establishing out-of-door sanitaria for consumption.
From The Letters of Ambrose Bierce With a Memoir by George Sterling by Ambrose Bierce
There are railway schools for children, vocational schools, summer camps, sanitariums and hospitals.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2022
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, tuberculosis patients sought refuge in sanitariums.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 13, 2022
Camps and sanitariums opened for business, and welcomed trainload upon trainload of them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2022
After graduating in 1953, she worked in sanitariums while completing a master’s degree in fine arts at BU, awarded in 1957.
From Seattle Times ● May 1, 2021
It was also worn by skaters, gymnasts, tourists, and in sanitariums.
From Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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.
