## Meanings
1. A person held by force, used to make others do what the captor wants.
2. Someone or something controlled or trapped by a particular situation or force.
3. To hold someone or something captive in order to force a result or trade.

## Examples
- The robbers took a bank teller hostage and demanded a getaway car.
- The whole project became a hostage to the company's shrinking budget.
- Critics said the negotiators were hostaging the deal to win extra concessions.

## Derived Forms
- guestage
- hostage-taker
- hostagehood
- hostager
- hostageship

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: hostage
- Root: obsidāticum

## Etymology
From Middle English hostage, ostage, from Old French hostage, ostage. This, in turn, is either from Old French hoste (“host”) + -age (in which case the sense development is from taking someone into "lodging" to taking them into "captivity", to applying the term to a captive), or is from Vulgar Latin obsidāticum (“condition of being held captive”), from Latin obses (“hostage, captive”), with the initial h- added under the influence of hoste or another word. Displaced native Old English ġīsl.

## AI Etymology
Hostage comes from Middle English hostage, ostage, from Old French hostage, ostage. This, in turn, is either from Old French hoste (“host”) + -age (in which case the sense development is from taking someone into "lodging" to taking them into "captivity", to applying the term to a captive), or is from Vulgar Latin obsidāticum (“condition of being held captive”), from Latin obses (“hostage, captive”), with the initial h- added under the influence of hoste or another word. Displaced native Old English ġīsl. The historical chain includes hostage (Middle English), hostage (Old French), and obsidāticum (Vulgar Latin). The surrounding word family includes derived forms such as guestage, hostage-taker, hostagehood, and hostager. In present use it covers a person held by force, used to make others do what the captor wants, someone or something controlled or trapped by a particular situation or force, and to hold someone or something captive in order to force a result or trade.

## Topics
- Cause, Change & Process
- Actions & Processes

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