asylum

noun asylums · asyla

1. countable, uncountable A place of safety or refuge. All the busy concerns of daily existence were utterly abhorrent to me. I loathed the sound of others' voices—I hated to be mixed up with their petty routine of ordinary cares; here was an asylum offered to me—here I might lay down all the offices of humanity, and dwell beside that grave whose rest w
2. uncountable The protection, physical and legal, afforded by such a place (as, for example, for political refugees). So lawyers started filing separate asylum requests for the children, arguing that reintegrating in countries they barely knew, after spending their childhood or adolescence in Belgium, would not only be impossible but would expose them to serious risks.
3. countable, dated, uncountable A place of protection or restraint for one or more classes of the disadvantaged, especially the mentally ill. Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

Similar: sanctuary, shelter

verb asylums · asyluming · asylumed

1. dated to place in an asylum It was she who in the last few years had spread abroad the notion that Charles Nagle, in the public interest, should be asylumed.
2. dated to grant protection or refuge We have..sheltered its paupers, asylumed its orphans, clothed its nakedness.