Asylum

How to spell asylum

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce asylum

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does asylum mean?

1. nounProtection or shelter granted by a country to someone who has fled danger or persecution elsewhere.
2. nounA now dated term for an institution that housed and cared for people considered mentally ill.

Asylum in a sentence

• The refugees applied for asylum at the border crossing.

• The old Victorian asylum on the hill was demolished in the 1980s.

• The journalist was granted political asylum after fleeing the regime.

• Records from the nineteenth century asylum revealed harsh living conditions.

Where does asylum come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek asylon, meaning a place that cannot be plundered or a refuge, which was formed from a- meaning 'not' and sylon, meaning 'the right of seizure' or 'plunder'. The literal idea was a sanctuary so protected that no one could legally carry a person off from it, for example a temple where a fugitive could not be touched. Latin took the word over as asylum, keeping the sense of a safe haven, and it passed into English in the fifteenth century with that meaning of refuge or sanctuary. By the eighteenth century English had also applied it specifically to institutions sheltering the poor and later the mentally ill, the now dated 'lunatic asylum'. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the sound spelled with a 'y' rather than an 'i', and a single 's', both of which survive directly from the Greek root.

How the word is built

• a- (Greek: not, without)
• syl- (from sylon: right of seizure or plunder)
• -um (Latin noun ending)