Word.ws English Dictionary

captives

captives is the plural of captive.

Meaning of captive

Noun

captive (plural captives)

  1. One who has been captured or is otherwise confined.
    • I envy not in any moods
      ⁠The captive void of noble rage,
      ⁠The linnet born within the cage,
      That never knew the summer woods: […]1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXVII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 44
  2. One held prisoner.
  3. (figuratively) One charmed or subdued by beauty, excellence, or affection; one who is captivated.
  4. A captive insurance company, a subsidiary of a company used as its internal insurer.

See all 8 meanings of captive

Questions about captives

What is captives the plural of?
Captives is the plural of captive.

Words near captives in the dictionary

  1. captive nations
  2. captive portal
  3. captive portals
  4. captived
  5. captively
  6. captives
  7. captiving
  8. captivities
  9. captivity
  10. captodative
  11. captodiame

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: captives (page history and authors); captive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “captives.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/captives. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.