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State of being guarded and watched to prevent escape; restraint of liberty; confinement; imprisonment. What pease will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe, And stripes and arbitrary punishment Milton.

Imprisonment; restraint of the person; custody by a jailer; duress. Shak. "Durance vile." Burns. In durance, exile, Bedlam or the mint. Pope.

Hardship; constraint; pressure; imprisonment; restraint of liberty. The agreements . . . made with the landlords during the time of slavery, are only the effect of duress and force. Burke.

See Imprison.

To put in jail; to imprison. [Obs.] Shak.

To put into jail; to imprison. [R.] Donne.

ht on shore for decoying a vessel to destruction. -- False galena. See Blende. -- False imprisonment (Law), the arrest and imprisonment of a person without warrant or cause, or contrary to law; or the unlawful detaining of a person in custody. -- False keel (Naut.), the timber below the main keel, used to serve both…

fidential officer employed in the service of the tribunal, especially in apprehending and imprisoning the accused.

A heinous crime; especially, a crime punishable by death or imprisonment.

Not confined or imprisoned; released from arrest; liberated; at liberty to go. Set an unhappy prisoner free. Prior.

A place of confinement, especially for minor offenses or provisional imprisonment; a jail. [Preferably, and in the United States usually, written jail.] Commission of general gaol delivery, an authority conferred upon judges and others included in it, for trying and delivering every prisoner in jail when the judges, up…

a party before a court or judge; especially, one to inquire into the cause of a person's imprisonment or detention by another, with the view to protect the right to personal liberty; also, one to bring a prisoner into court to testify in a pending trial. Bouvier.

. -- To have the heels of, to outrun. -- To lay by the heels, to fetter; to shackle; to imprison. Shak. Addison. -- To show the heels, to flee; to run from. -- To take to the heels, to flee; to betake to flight. -- To throw up another's heels, to trip him. Bunyan. -- To tread upon one's heels, to follow closely.…

y or condition of being illegal; unlawfulness; as, the illegality of trespass or of false imprisonment; also, an illegal act.

To inclose whithin walls, or as within walls; hence, to shut up; to imprison; to incarcerate. Those tender babes Whom envy hath immured within your walls. Shak. This huge convex of fire, Outrageous to devour, immures us round. Milton.

To imprison; to confine in a jail or priso

The act of confining, or the state of being confined; imprisonment. Glanvill.

One who is corrigible; especially, a hardened criminal; as, the perpetual imprisonment of incorrigibles.

er. -- Jail liberties, or Jail limits, a space or district around a jail within which an imprisoned debtor was, on certain conditions, allowed to go at large. Abbott. -- Jail lock, a peculiar form of padlock; -- called also Scandinavian lock.

To commit to jail; to imprison. [Slang]