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

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.

Freedom from imprisonment, bonds, or other restraint upon locomotion. Being pent from liberty, as I am now. Shak.

shes, ornament, increment; fragment, piece broken, segment; abridgment, act of abridging, imprisonment, movement, adjournment; amazement, state of being amazed, astonishment.

ound in some old castles and other strongholds, into which persons condemned to perpetual imprisonment, or to perish secretly, were thrust, or lured to fall. Sudden in the sun An oubliette winks. Where is he Gone. Mrs. Browning.

prohibited certain acts, and imposing penalties for committing them. -- Penal servitude, imprisonment with hard labor, in a prison, in lieu of transportation. [Great Brit.] -- Penal suit, Penal action (Law), a suit for penalties.

Imprisonment. [Obs.] Shak.

Sore, as if by being galled. And all his sinews waxen weak and raw Through long imprisonment. Spenser.

The forcible liberation of a person from an arrest or imprisonment.

ociety condemns the securement in all cases of perpetual protection by means of perpetual imprisonment. C. A. Ives.

d. (a) To cause to advance. (b) To promote. -- To set free, to release from confinement, imprisonment, or bondage; to liberate; to emancipate. -- To set in, to put in the way; to begin; to give a start to. [Obs.] If you please to assist and set me in, I will recollect myself. Collier. -- To set in order, to adjust or…

Not right; illegal; as, wrongous imprisonment. Craig.