How to Use captive in a Sentence

captive

1 of 2 adjective

• The captive soldiers planned their escape.
• But did one captive bird spread flute songs to a whole flock?
  — The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 19 Aug. 2025
• Smart said she was raped daily over the nine months she was held captive.
  — Cathy Free, Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2023
• Fifty-two of the hostages were held captive for 444 days.
  — Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com, 12 Nov. 2025
• All of them had been held captive since 2022.
  — Alex Nitzberg, FOXNews.com, 26 June 2026
• Huskins was held captive for two days and raped twice by her kidnapper.
  — Nicole Acosta, Peoplemag, 3 Apr. 2024
• Inmates took two guards captive, and the third guard escaped.
  — Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2026
• That led police to the room where the woman was being held captive.
  — Kate Linderman, Kansas City Star, 1 Mar. 2024
• She would be held captive and raped repeatedly for the next nine months.
  — Diana Pearl, Peoplemag, 5 Sep. 2023
• Alas, the captive here also ended with a thud and a bloody mess on the pavement.
  — Jay Adkisson, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
• Pay attention to market trends, but don’t be held captive by them.
  — Tribune News Service, Baltimore Sun, 22 Jan. 2026
• When all settled, inmates held 42 men captive in the yard.
  — Michael Collins, USA Today, 14 Oct. 2025
• The drafting of the captive policies was at best sophomoric.
  — Jay Adkisson, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
• Both girls were held captive for days before being released.
  — Virginia Chamlee, PEOPLE, 6 Nov. 2025
• Maybe she was doomed, and her children doomed, to be held captive to this fate forever.
  — John Blake, CNN Money, 22 Mar. 2026
• About 50 hostages remain captive, more than half of whom are believed to be dead.
  — David Zimmermann, The Washington Examiner, 8 Aug. 2025
• Rotating shifts of soldiers held us captive on board.
  — Emily Wilder, Harpers Magazine, 30 Dec. 2025
• In the book, Carrie holds Lo captive, but then has a change of heart and frees her.
  — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2025
• 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
• More than 100 hostages are believed to still be held captive in Gaza.
  — TIME, 20 Jan. 2024
• Thus, life insurance is not the type of asset that is suitable for a captive.
  — Jay Adkisson, Forbes.com, 10 May 2026
• Fifteen have since been rescued but eight remain captive.
  — ABC News, 27 Apr. 2026
• The military says some were held captive in the home of a Gaza doctor.
  — Daniel Estrin, NPR, 7 Oct. 2025
• Clark takes Mary captive inside the Backrooms and ties her to a chair.
  — Emily Blackwood, PEOPLE, 30 May 2026
• Instead, Danny is a captive in her home, for days into weeks.
  — Pete Hammond, Deadline, 6 Sep. 2025
• Meanwhile, Huskins was held captive for two days and raped twice by her kidnapper.
  — Nicole Acosta, Peoplemag, 30 Jan. 2024
• She was held captive for ten years, but is finally found and brought to Grey Sloan.
  — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2025
• 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
• Once trafficked into these scam compounds, they were held captive and forced to defraud people.
  — Sui-Lee Wee, New York Times, 29 Aug. 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

captive

2 of 2 noun

• There were slaves and there were captives in the West.
  — Brenton Blanchet, PEOPLE, 17 Sep. 2025
• Adams argued that the captives had the right of due process.
  — Time, 24 Sep. 2025
• 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 10-months old, Kfir is believed to be the youngest captive.
  — Yuliya Talmazan, NBC News, 29 Nov. 2023
• Israel has said the siege will only be lifted when the captives are returned.
  — TIME, 15 Oct. 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
• The captives were forced to their knees before being shot from behind as dozens of bystanders looked on.
  — Barney Henderson, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 Oct. 2025
• Jews have been reciting this prayer – for the release of captives – for almost a thousand years.
  — Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, USA Today, 4 Oct. 2025
• As for the three other captives, Caldwell says at least two remain deeply scarred to this day.
  — Namir Khaliq, Big Think, 31 Mar. 2026
• Then all five disappeared and were later confirmed to be captives.
  — Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, arkansasonline.com, 27 Nov. 2023
• When the male guards flee, the captives emerge into a barren plain, and the girl, the last to survive, writes about her life.
  — The Week Us, TheWeek, 20 May 2026
• 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 captives have already exited the scene.
  — James Meyer, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
• The captives existed in a sort of timelessness, without any sight of the sun or clocks.
  — Alex Horton, Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2023
• The captives come to believe there has been a coup, which is confirmed by the executions.
  — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 29 Apr. 2026
• Netanyahu has argued that the offensive is the surest way to free captives and crush Hamas.
  — Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, Arkansas Online, 23 Aug. 2025
• The captives remained behind bars until the new president was sworn in.
  — CBS News, 19 Feb. 2023
• The truth is that albums worked as a medium only because everyone was a captive.
  — New York Times, 1 Jan. 2021
• The criminal groups try to break their captives with a mix of violence and twisted logic.
  — Isabelle Qian, New York Times, 17 Dec. 2023
• 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
• Then Hannah and two other captives took their revenge by killing and scalping their captors.
  — Kevin Cullen, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Sep. 2023
• That said, captives are not a universal solution, and leaders should approach them with clear eyes.
  — Scott Byrne, Forbes.com, 21 Jan. 2026
• For the past 105 days, Israel has sought to destroy Hamas and free the captives.
  — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 19 Jan. 2024
• Cassandra, the woman Agamemnon brought home with him as a war captive, is murdered, too.
  — Teju Cole, New York Times, 12 Sep. 2023
• The surviving 20 captives have all returned home.
  — Laura Kelly, The Hill, 15 Oct. 2025
• 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
• Israel is under increasing pressure from hostage families to make a deal to bring the captives home.
  — Shira Rubin, Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2024
• But women were among the captives who survived the Middle Passage.
  — Ed Gaskin, Boston Herald, 8 Mar. 2026
• 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
• All 20 living hostages and the bodies of 15 deceased captives have so far been released.
  — David Brennan, ABC News, 27 Oct. 2025