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plural asylums or asyla
A place of safety or refuge. quotations examples
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 was now my only desire.
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 295
The protection, physical and legal, afforded by such a place (as, for example, for political refugees). examples
(dated) A place of protection or restraint for one or more classes of the disadvantaged, especially the mentally ill. quotations examples
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.
1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients