asylum

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

• IPA^(key): /əˈsaɪləm/

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• Rhymes: -aɪləm

asylum (countable and uncountable, plural asylums or asyla)

1. A place of safety or refuge.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 295:

     All the busy concerns of daily existence were utterly abhorrent to me. I loathed the sound of others' voices—I hated to be mixed up with their petty routine of ordinary cares; here was an asylum offered to me—here I might lay down all the offices of humanity, and dwell beside that grave whose rest was now my only desire.

2. (uncountable) The protection, physical and legal, afforded by such a place (as, for example, for political refugees).
3. (dated) A place of protection or restraint for one or more classes of the disadvantaged, especially the mentally ill.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     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

• non-refoulement
• refugee

From Ancient Greek ἄσυλον (ásulon).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [aˈsyː.ɫũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [aˈs̬iː.lum]

asȳlum n (genitive asȳlī); second declension

1. (place of refuge), sanctuary

   Synonyms: perfugium, latebra, receptāculum, tēctum, refugium, dēverticulum

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• “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