From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishasyluma‧sy‧lum /əˈsaɪləm/ ●○○ noun 1 [uncountable]PROTECT protection given to someone by a government because they have escaped from fighting or political trouble in their own countryapply for/seek/be granted asylum He has been granted asylum in France. → political asylum2 [countable]HOSPITAL old use a mental hospital
Examples from the Corpus
asylum• She thinks of the Periodicals room as an asylum for homesick aliens.• Would we recognize that as ground for asylum?• Cubans who reach the U.S. are usually granted asylum.• About 17,500 people were granted asylum, out of 154,000 asylum applications filed.• She was almost a whole world to him, a country that had offered asylum.• They have sought political asylum in the United States.• Gypsies from Eastern Europe have sought asylum in Britain.• In May, after months of bickering, parliament amended the asylum law.• It had apparently been hoped that the numbers of long-term patients suffering from dementia would diminish with the rundown of the asylums.• The government described them as economic refugees who have no legal claim to asylum.• The Victorian asylum movement was successful largely because of a unanimity of views on the subject by most men of influence.Origin asylum (1400-1500) Latin Greek asylon, from asylos “not able to be seized” 