sanatorium
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˌsænəˈtɔːrɪəm/
- Offensive
:
manicomio
- When I was in the sanatorium, there was only one guard on my ward.
Examples
-
Decades later, after sinking deeper and deeper into melancholy, Ambrose decides to finish his last years in the same sanatorium.
Academic text (2003) -
Dear had died in the sanatorium she had entered for depression.
Fiction book (1991) -
Another ward in the sanatorium had no guard on it at all.
-
Your mother is still alive... in some distant sanatorium.
-
He spent the rest of his life in psychiatric sanatoriums.
Academic text (1997) -
In 1930-31, a 15-month stay for Zelda in a sanatorium on Lake Geneva cost $13,000.
Academic text (2009) -
The suspect, now identified as Quentin Shermer, escaped the Avondale Sanatorium, a maximum-security facility for the criminally insane.
-
During World War I, the visionary Cosmo is plagued by horrific images of mass death, and in the 1920s, he suffers a nervous breakdown from which he never recovers, dying in a private sanatorium in Ithaca.
Academic text (2003) -
Decades ago, many patients believed they would find peace and treatment in a sanatorium for their mental health issues.
-
After struggling with severe depression, she was admitted to a sanatorium that specialized in mental illness.
Synonyms
64
7.5
A hospital where people with mental health problems get care
42
3.6
A hospital that cares for people who have serious problems with their mind
38
2.8
A hospital where doctors help people with problems of the mind
26
8.0
A very noisy, chaotic place often used to describe a mental hospital or busy shop
13
9.9
A rude informal word for a hospital for people with mental illness
4
9.2
A noisy place where many people shout and act in a confused way
Surface Forms
Morphology
sanatorium = sanat + orium
The morphological elements are the same as the medical sense but the sense has shifted/been specialized (pejorative use as an asylum), so learners cannot infer this meaning from the parts.
Etymology
The word sanatorium was also used in the past for hospitals for people with mental illness, and this comes from the same root as the English word sane, meaning 'healthy in mind'. A helpful way to remember this older use is that it meant a 'place for health', but today calling a mental hospital a sanatorium can sound old or hurtful.