Middle English: from Old French, based on late Latin obsidatus 'the state of being a hostage' (the earliest sense in English), from Latin obses, obsid- 'hostage'.

• The word hostage has no connection with host (see hospital) in any of its uses—it goes back to Latin ob ‘towards, against’ and sedere ‘to sit’, used to mean ‘the state of being a hostage’. Originally an ally or enemy would hand over a hostage as security for the fulfilment of an undertaking. Now hostages are ‘taken’ as well as ‘held’, and are very seldom handed over voluntarily. In a hostage to fortune, the word fortune means ‘fate’, with the idea being that future events are no longer under a person's control but in the hands of fate. In a rather jaundiced reflection on marriage the English philosopher Francis Bacon wrote in 1625: ‘He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue, or of mischief.’