Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use captivity in a sentence

23 example sentences · noun

Captivity means the state of being captive. Example: “The animals lived in captivity at the zoo.”

Examples of captivity by meaning

nounThe state of being captive.

  • held in captivity
  • escape from captivity
  • The animals lived in captivity at the zoo.

More sentences with captivity

  • Not all animals thrive well in captivity.From the entry thrive
  • The communal nature of ostriches may have made these birds more amenable to life in captivity.2020 August 4, Richard Conniff, “They may look goofy, but ostriches are nobody’s fool”, in National Geographic Magazine. From the entry amenable
  • In captivity, the margay is well known for its climbing and jumping acrobatics.2010, David Whyte Macdonald, Andrew J. Loveridge, Kristin Nowell, “Chapter 1: Dramatis personae: an introduction to the wild felids”, in…. From the entry margay
  • But a parakeet living in captivity is by necessity deprived of natural life.2000, Wolter, Annette, The Parakeet Handbook, →OCLC. From the entry surrogate activity
  • In captivity the aoudad seems to like water and to enjoy taking a bath.1999, Ronald M. Nowak, “Aoudad, or Barbary Sheep”, in Walker′s Mammals of the World, volume 1, page 1231. From the entry aoudad
  • The 82 other members of the ship's company underwent 11 months of brutal captivity.1988 December 25, “Pueblo's Veterans Look Back on '68 in Anger”, in New York Times, retrieved 03 Aug 2012. From the entry ship's company
  • Out there on the stage is the largest — and most piebald — rock band in captivity.1970, “Time”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 95, page 67. From the entry piebald
  • Put into a sack, the young snorker was carried back to captivity.[1961], Andrew Dow Griffen, Laughter Lingers On…: Seven Merry Tales of Early Auckland, Mount Roskill, Auckland, →OCLC, page 18. From the entry snorker
  • In Job 42:10 the A.V. translates overliterally, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job.1954, Anglican Theological Review, volume 36, number 3, page 188. From the entry overliterally
  • While the tomato clownfish Amphiprion frenatus has been spawned in captivity, wild-caught tomato clowns are more often seen for sale.2006, Tropical Fish Hobbyist, volume 54, numbers 5-8, page 32. From the entry clown
  • And at the same time, wild nature itself is becoming a megazoo — just a different kind of captivity.2001, Vernon N. Kisling, Zoo and Aquarium History. From the entry megazoo
  • And the row of human captors, ever leering, They who caged me, Know their power and gloat on my captivity.1923, Animal World: An Advocate of Humanity, page 33. From the entry cage
  • After a lifetime in circus captivity, this elderly girl gets to live out the rest of her days at a bear sanctuary.2023 May 26, AJ Willingham, “5 things to know for May 26: Debt limit, White House, Abortion, Peru, Covid”, in CNN, archived from the…. From the entry scrungly
  • Five condors had been free-flying initially and were then brought into captivity for medical treatment for various reasons including lead exposure, microtrash, or injury.2015 November 26, “Seroepidemiologic Survey of Potential Pathogens in Obligate and Facultative Scavenging Avian Species in California”, in…. From the entry microtrash
  • The nene is a handsome bird that almost became extinct in the wild but was reintroduced successfully from ones bred in captivity.2004, Richard [Alan] Fortey, The Earth: An Intimate History, London: HarperCollins, →ISBN; republished London: Folio Society, 2011, →OCLC…. From the entry nene
  • The Hawaiian goose or nene (Branta sandvicensis) is perhaps chiefly celebrated for the great success with which it has been reared in captivity.2000, Errol Fuller, Extinct Birds, Oxford, page 82. From the entry Hawaiian goose
  • In Cambridge, England, it is very difficult to rear wild Pieris rapae, the small white butterfly, in captivity since a very high proportion die from a granulosis.2012, K. Smith, Introduction to Virology, →ISBN, page 107. From the entry granulosis
  • You shot a bunch of Cubans, you kept me in captivity, you phonyed up a phone call so you could kidnap a person in state custody.2010, Robert K. Tanenbaum, Depraved Indifference, →ISBN. From the entry phonyed up
  • Calypso is by far the most effective impediment Odysseus encounters on his journey home to Ithaca, holding him in a sensuous but tedious captivity for seven years, Lotusland revisited.1994, Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe: The History of an Enchantress. From the entry lotusland
  • Yet , during their Babylonian captivity , it is quite possible that Baalish symbolic thinking gave the defeated Jews the needed hope to survive as a people .1983, Ward McAfee, A History of the World's Great Religions, page 12. From the entry Baalish

Meaning of captivity

  1. noun The state of being captive.
  2. noun A group of people/beings captive.
  3. noun The state or period of being imprisoned, confined, or enslaved.

Full definition of captivity

Questions about captivity in a sentence

How do you use captivity in a sentence?
Captivity is used as a noun. For example: “The animals lived in captivity at the zoo.”
What is a short sentence with captivity?
“escape from captivity”
What does captivity mean?
Captivity means the state of being captive.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: captivity (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use captivity in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/captivity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.