hostage crisis

noun

: a situation in which someone is holding people as hostages

Examples of hostage crisis in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Those facts, as well as the repercussions of the Iran hostage crisis, left him with a 21% approval rating. M.l. Nestel, ABC News, 19 Nov. 2023 The current hostage crisis in Gaza is unlike any other, experts say. Joanna Slater, Washington Post, 15 Nov. 2023 Compared with the Iranian hostage crisis—day a hundred and fifteen!—it seemed like no big deal to me, but my mother had a very different reaction. Junot Díaz, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023 The kidnappings of more than 100 people from southern Israel by Hamas militants have triggered a mass hostage crisis, plunging families into terror and injecting a complex new dimension into the war. Imogen Piper, Washington Post, 12 Oct. 2023 The hostage crisis has roiled Israel and stunned people around the world. Richard Engel, NBC News, 23 Oct. 2023 These are the families experiencing the unbearable anguish of being in the middle of the world’s most complicated hostage crisis in recent memory. Jeffrey Gettleman Tamir Kalifa, New York Times, 16 Oct. 2023 While Israel has retrieved hostages and the remains of its citizens in the past, the scope and complexity of this hostage crisis is beyond anything the country has faced before. Christa Case Bryant, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Oct. 2023 Israelis are still reeling from the shocking losses of October 7 and the unfolding hostage crisis. TIME, 12 Oct. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hostage crisis.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Dictionary Entries Near hostage crisis

Cite this Entry

“Hostage crisis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hostage%20crisis. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!