prisoner of war

1. 1.

   a person who surrenders to (or is taken by) the enemy in time of war

   SynonymsPOW

   Broaderprisoner

Questions about prisoner of war

What does prisoner of war mean?

prisoner of war means "a person who surrenders to (or is taken by) the enemy in time of war".

What is another word for prisoner of war?

Close synonyms include POW. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is prisoner of war a common word?

prisoner of war is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.