sanitarium
Americannoun
-
sanitariums,
plural
-
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:
By the time he was released, on May 26, his children had been flown to a sanitarium called Poliany, a strictly guarded institution near Moscow.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2023
The Soledar mine had become a tourist attraction, complete with a sanitarium built around the unproven health benefits of breathing salt-infused air.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
Italianate-Mission in style, boxy with projecting cornice and flat roofline, it belonged to the developer, who in 1925 turned his private villa into a sanitarium and orphanage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2022
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
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
The Greeks built combination temples and sanitaria, to which the afflicted resorted.
From Maintaining Health Formerly Health and Efficiency by R. L. Alsaker
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
And yet they have, within two days of sharp ride, that finest of sanitaria, the Hismá, which extends as far north and south as they please to go.
From The Land of Midian — Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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
The existing network of government-run military sanitariums, a Soviet-era relic where wounded ex-soldiers could spend several weeks for recovery, has also proven to be ineffective.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 10, 2022
There are railway schools for children, vocational schools, summer camps, sanitariums and hospitals.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2022
Remember that sanitariums weren’t modern hospitals where patients dropped in for a checkup or treatment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 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
I have many letters from people who have been in sanitariums for years and who still have "nerves."
From How to Eat A Cure for "Nerves" by Thomas C. (Thomas Clark) Hinkle
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.
