(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
A ~ is someone who has been captured by a person or organization and who may be killed or injured if people do not do what that person or organization demands.
N-COUNT
2.
If someone is taken ~ or is held ~, they are captured and kept as a ~.
He was taken ~ while on his first foreign assignment as a television journalist.
PHRASE: V inflects
3.
If you say you are ~ to something, you mean that your freedom to take action is restricted by things that you cannot control.
With the reduction in foreign investments, the government will be even more a ~ to the whims of the international oil price...
N-VAR: N to n