People who are imprisoned, held, or kept as prisoners, unable to leave or escape.
From Latin 'captivus' (taken, captured), derived from 'capere' (to take or seize). The word entered English through Old French and has carried the sense of enforced confinement since medieval times.
The root 'capere' is so fundamental to Latin that it spawned hundreds of English words—capture, captain, capital—all literally meaning 'someone/something in charge of taking.' Captives are simply the 'taken ones' in this ancient power dynamic.
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