Word.ws English Dictionary

take hostage

take hostage verb: to take custody or possession of a person as security for performance against a treaty, a pledge, or a demand, especially now an extra-legal demand; to take as hostage.

Verb

take hostage (third-person singular simple present takes hostage, present participle taking hostage, simple past took hostage, past participle taken hostage)

  1. (transitive) To take custody or possession of a person as security for performance against a treaty, a pledge, or a demand, especially now an extra-legal demand; to take as hostage.

Forms of take hostage

third-person singular presenttakes hostage
present participletaking hostage
pasttook hostage
past participletaken hostage

Questions about take hostage

What does take hostage mean?
Take hostage means to take custody or possession of a person as security for performance against a treaty, a pledge, or a demand, especially now an extra-legal demand; to take as hostage.
What part of speech is take hostage?
Take hostage is a verb.
What is the past tense of take hostage?
The past tense of take hostage is took hostage.

Words near take hostage in the dictionary

  1. take heed
  2. take hold
  3. take holy orders
  4. take home
  5. take horse
  6. take hostage
  7. take huff
  8. take ill
  9. take in
  10. take in hand
  11. take in turn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take hostage (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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