How to Use captive in a Sentence

captive

1 of 2 adjective

• The captive soldiers planned their escape.
• Damon was the host and had Kimmel held captive, tied up with duct tape at the back of the stage.
  — Skyler Caruso, Peoplemag, 3 Apr. 2023
• Jaycee Dugard Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years.
  — Ashlyn Messier, Fox News, 28 Apr. 2024
• Smart said she was raped daily over the nine months she was held captive.
  — Cathy Free, Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2023
• More than 100 hostages are believed to still be held captive in Gaza.
  — TIME, 20 Jan. 2024
• As Rhodes comes to, Ross and others remark that the Colonel has been held captive for a long time.
  — Evan Romano, Men's Health, 26 July 2023
• That led police to the room where the woman was being held captive.
  — Kate Linderman, Kansas City Star, 1 Mar. 2024
• At the time, the reference was akin to the Israeli hostages who had been held captive for nearly a month at the time.
  — Jenny Goldsberry, Washington Examiner, 21 Dec. 2023
• Some work will also have to be done to prepare the captive animals for life in the wild, Knight said.
  — Rachel Nuwer, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Sep. 2023
• Huskins was held captive for two days and raped twice by her kidnapper.
  — Nicole Acosta, Peoplemag, 3 Apr. 2024
• She would be held captive and raped repeatedly for the next nine months.
  — Diana Pearl, Peoplemag, 5 Sep. 2023
• At least some, if not most, of the more than 220 hostages taken captive from Israel on Oct. 7 are believed to have been held there.
  — Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2023
• The woman said she had been held captive and assaulted.
  — Minyvonne Burke, NBC News, 8 Aug. 2023
• There were naysayers, of course, who said the captive butterflies wouldn’t survive in the wild or be able to find each other to mate.
  — Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2023
• Rothenberg Gritz: Jeremy watched as some of the service members posed for pictures in front of the place they were once held captive.
  — Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Nov. 2023
• They had been held captive since crossing into the northeastern state of Tamaulipas from the Texas city of Brownsville on March 3.
  — Brandon Livesay, Peoplemag, 8 Mar. 2023
• They were kidnapped by Ariel Castro, who kept them captive in his Cleveland house for 10 years.
  — Diana Pearl, Peoplemag, 5 Sep. 2023
• Meanwhile, Huskins was held captive for two days and raped twice by her kidnapper.
  — Nicole Acosta, Peoplemag, 30 Jan. 2024
• The Friday night service was scheduled to have prayers for the state of Israel, its defense forces and for all those held captive, as well as for peace.
  — Frank E. Lockwood, Arkansas Online, 14 Oct. 2023
• Charhi will portray Berenice, Queen of the conquered Judeans currently held captive in Rome.
  — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Mar. 2023
• In 2018, the reptile laid a clutch of eggs, a common practice among captive reptiles, even those without mates.
  — Dayna Haffenden, Peoplemag, 8 June 2023
• More than 100 hostages kidnapped from Israel in the Oct. 7 assault remain captive in Gaza.
  — Helene Cooper, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2024
• The first hostage deal in late November saw the return of dozens of hostages taken captive by Hamas on October 7 and a week-long truce.
  — Jeremy Diamond, CNN, 22 Feb. 2024
• More mediation lies ahead in search of a deal to secure the release of hostages who remain captive in Gaza.
  — Najib Jobain and Wafaa Shurafa, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Jan. 2024
• Deputies arrived within minutes and the woman told them she'd been held captive for weeks and had just escaped.
  — Aliza Chasan, CBS News, 17 July 2023
• Speaking to King in 2004, Melinda said that over time, Landy became captive of Brian.
  — Kaitlin Stevens, Peoplemag, 31 Jan. 2024
• Around 130 remain captive, but a number have since been confirmed dead.
  — Melanie Lidman, Fortune, 23 Jan. 2024
• After the recent blaze, the captive ‘akikiki will live to see another day, but the birds—and their caretakers—still have a long road ahead of them.
  — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Aug. 2023
• We’re held captive by the Cinderella myth, the idea that these transformations are abrupt and happen overnight.
  — Joanne Lipman, Fortune, 13 Apr. 2023
• His wife was freed in November but his sister remains captive.
  — Sam Mednick, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Apr. 2024

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captive

2 of 2 noun

• At 10-months old, Kfir is believed to be the youngest captive.
  — Yuliya Talmazan, NBC News, 29 Nov. 2023
• For the past 105 days, Israel has sought to destroy Hamas and free the captives.
  — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 19 Jan. 2024
• Even the father of one of the dead captives asked, plaintively, why the soldiers did not wound his son in the leg.
  — Hazem Balousha, Washington Post, 22 Dec. 2023
• The team is waiting on permits to release the captives.
  — Byrichard Stone, science.org, 9 May 2023
• At the end of episode two, Miu is seeking revenge on the demon that has held her captive.
  — Lane Brown, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2023
• None of the recent releases were among the dead, but one was a captive that had been tagged and released in 2019.
  — Meera Subramanian, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2024
• He was known to offer places in his band to captives who preferred piracy to death.
  — Jamie Kitman, Car and Driver, 1 Apr. 2023
• At least 25 of the captives have already been declared dead, and many Israelis fear that time is running out for the rest.
  — Isabel Kershner, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2024
• The captives existed in a sort of timelessness, without any sight of the sun or clocks.
  — Alex Horton, Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2023
• Israel has said the siege will only be lifted when the captives are returned.
  — TIME, 15 Oct. 2023
• Har says the guards did not harass anyone physically, but the captives were most afraid for the 17-year-old girl.
  — Daniel Estrin, NPR, 5 Apr. 2024
• When Johnson grabbed the phone to call 911, the woman ran away, saying the man who'd held her captive would kill them both, according to the station.
  — Tim Stelloh, NBC News, 11 Oct. 2022
• Rut is now among the large and varied group of captives that Hamas is believed to have dragged back to its underground labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza.
  — Adam Sella, New York Times, 21 Oct. 2023
• Lately, Trump has been attacking Biden as a captive of the extreme left wing of his party.
  — David Hogberg, Washington Examiner, 27 Aug. 2020
• As a result of the brutal conditions that captives were subjected to on the ships, 1.8 million died along the way.
  — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 Mar. 2024
• Bianco claimed in her lawsuit that Warner raped her, held her captive, and beat her with a whip, among other charges.
  — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 25 May 2022
• But Mehrtens has been held for far longer than most captives, and now a rift has emerged between Mehrtens’ captors as to what to do with the 37-year-old husband and father.
  — Angus Watson, CNN, 6 Feb. 2024
• Israel says Hamas is still holding at least 210 captives.
  — TIME, 21 Oct. 2023
• Many are skeptical that the release of two captives — out of more than 200 — will make much difference.
  — Hazem Balousha, Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2023
• The plight of the captives, who include men, women and children, has galvanized Israeli support for the war.
  — Najib Jobain, arkansasonline.com, 16 Nov. 2023
• The Swift captives ultimately received back from Jade 99.59% of that amount.
  — Jay Adkisson, Forbes, 10 Feb. 2024
• The captives remained behind bars until the new president was sworn in.
  — CBS News, 19 Feb. 2023
• The criminal groups try to break their captives with a mix of violence and twisted logic.
  — Isabelle Qian, New York Times, 17 Dec. 2023
• The whole thing ends with a very dramatic scene in which Oliver holds Marissa captive, Ryan bangs on a door, and mayhem ensues.
  — Samantha Highfill, EW.com, 26 Oct. 2021
• The pilot also survived, but the two captives were never together over the next five years and seven months.
  — Diane Bell, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 June 2023
• Cassandra, the woman Agamemnon brought home with him as a war captive, is murdered, too.
  — Teju Cole, New York Times, 12 Sep. 2023
• The English at one point captured Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, and held her captive for a year.
  — Washington Post, 10 July 2021
• Then all five disappeared and were later confirmed to be captives.
  — Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, arkansasonline.com, 27 Nov. 2023
• That is of course why Trump went after Hunter Biden and tried to prosecute the case that the former vice president wasn't a nice old moderate but a captive of the far left.
  — TheWeek, 30 Sep. 2020
• At one point, Japanese marines cut a hole in the second floor of a house, led scores of Philippine captives upstairs, forced them to kneel at the edge, and beheaded them one by one.
  — Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2023

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024