Ransom is money or something valuable that criminals demand in exchange for releasing a person they've kidnapped or returning something they've stolen. If someone holds a person for ransom, they're keeping that person captive until someone pays them to let the person go.

Today, ransom usually refers to kidnapping crimes, where criminals take someone and demand payment from their family. Sometimes hackers hold computer files for ransom, locking people out of their own data until they pay.

You might hear someone say they're being held for ransom, or that a family paid a ransom to rescue someone. The phrase king's ransom means an enormous amount of money.

Paying ransom creates a difficult problem: giving criminals what they want might save someone immediately, but it also encourages more kidnappings. That's why many governments have strict policies about ransom payments. The core idea behind ransom is using something or someone valuable as leverage to force others to pay.