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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.

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.

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

nd 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.

ohibited 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.

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.

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

(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 a…

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