asylum

From Latin asylum, from Ancient Greek ἄσυλον (ásulon).

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /əˈsaɪləm/

asylum (plural asylums or asyla)

1. A place of safety.
2. The protection, physical and legal, afforded by such a place.
3. (dated) A place of protection or restraint for one or more classes of the disadvantaged, especially the mentally ill.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

• sanctuary
• shelter

• refugee

From Ancient Greek ἄσυλον (ásulon).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /aˈsyː.lum/, [aˈsyː.ɫũ]

asȳlum n (genitive asȳlī); second declension

1. asylum (place of refuge), sanctuary

Second declension.

• English: asylum
• French: asile
• Italian: asilo
• Portuguese: asilo
• Spanish: asilo

• asylum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• asylum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• asylum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• asylum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• asylum in Samuel Ball Platner (1929), Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press
• asylum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin