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/əsˈaɪləm/ Listen

noun

Asylum n. (pl. E. asylums, L. asyla)

A sanctuary or place of refuge and protection, where criminals and debtors found shelter, and from which they could not be forcibly taken without sacrilege. "So sacred was the church to some, that it had the right of an asylum or sanctuary." Note: The name was anciently given to temples, altars, statues of the gods, and the like. In later times Christian churches were regarded as asylums in the same sense.

Any place of retreat and security. "Earth has no other asylum for them than its own cold bosom."

An institution for the protection or relief of some class of destitute, unfortunate, or afflicted persons; as, an asylum for the aged, for the blind, or for the insane; a lunatic asylum; an orphan asylum.

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Etymology of 'Asylum'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Asylum" Quotes from Famous Books

... Leu was at last also compelled to yield to the urgent entreaties of her friends, and seek an asylum during these days of uncertainty and danger. She quitted her dwelling in disguise, and, penetrating through the army of spies who lay in wait around the house and in the street in which she resided, she happily succeeded in reaching the hiding-place ...

— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... spoken and touched the hearts of emotional people, they came trickling back to his father's church, to the "British" Church, as David now called it. Little Bethel was empty, and the pastor-blacksmith not yet out of the asylum at Swansea. The Revd. Howel Williams trod on air. His sermons became terribly long and involved, but that was no drawback in the minds of his Welsh auditory; though it made his son swear inwardly and reconciled him to the approaching return to Fig Tree ...

— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... "Toner Lectures" for the promotion and advancement of medical education and research. In 1873, Dr. Toner became president of the American Medical Association and, in 1874, he became president of the American Public Health Association. He was a physician to St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum and St. Ann's Infants' Asylum in Washington, D.C. In addition, he was instrumental in establishing Providence Hospital in the District of Columbia. He also provided a workable plan for the American Medical Association's library in ...

— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh

... lady, extremely well dressed but apparently belonging to no one, they would in all likelihood ask her name, and she would have to tell them who she was; and then she would be brought back to Baron Volterra's house, unless they thought it more prudent to take her to a lunatic asylum. ...

— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... sharing of a common comeliness among them there was a reason. In a land where physical perfection literally is worshipped, good-looking men, brawny and broad, are surest of winning an asylum and wives and tribal equality. To Pratt it seems to have been a source of wonderment that almost without exception they were blue-eyed and light-haired; he could understand of course why their skins, once fair and white, ...

— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

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