Search the Dictionary

to; to except or excuse from he operation of a law; to grant immunity to; to free from obligation; to release; as, to exempt from military duty, or from jury service; to exempt from fear or pain. Death So snatched will not exempt us from the pain We are by doom to pay. Milton.

To relieve, in a moral sense, as of a charge, obligation, or load of blame resting on one; to clear of something that lies upon oppresses one, as an accusation or imputation; as, to exonerate one's self from blame, or from the charge of avarice. Burke.

Freeing from a burden or obligation; tending to exonerate.

One who exonerates or frees from obligation.

The annihilation or extinction of a right or obligation. Abbott.

's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.

Not faithful or loyal, as to obligations, allegiance, vows, etc.; untrue; treacherous; perfidious; as, a false friend, lover, or subject; false to promises. I to myself was false, ere thou to me. Milton.

Fidelity to one's lord; the feudal obligation by which the tenant or vassal was bound to be faithful to his lord; the special oath by which this obligation was assumed; fidelity to a superior power, or to a government; loyality. It is no longer the practice to exact the performance of fealty, as a feudal obligation. Wh…

reastrain from motion; to impose restrains on; to confine; to enchain; as, fettered by obligations. My conscience! thou art fettered More than my shanks and wrists. Shak.

udal system; a system by which the holding of estates in land is made dependent upon an obligation to render military service to the kind or feudal superior; feudal principles and usages.

Faithfulness; adherence to right; careful and exact observance of duty, or discharge of obligations. Especially:

influence or producing an effect; especially, power to persuade, or convince, or impose obligation; pertinency; validity; special signification; as, the force of an appeal, an argument, a contract, or a term. He was, in the full force of the words, a good man. Macaulay.

To fail to keep an obligation. [Obs.] I will have the heart of him if he forfeit. Shak.

den; -- followed by from, or, rarely, by of. Princes declaring themselves free from the obligations of their treaties. Bp. Burnet.

d; not fallacious; valid; in a commercial sense, to be depended on for the discharge of obligations incurred; having pecuniary ability; of unimpaired credit. My reasons are both good and weighty. Shak. My meaning in saying he is a good man is . . . that he is sufficient . . . I think I may take his bond. Shak.…

To be under necessity or obligation; to be compelled; followed by an infinitive. Science has, and will long have, to be a divider and a separatist. M. Arnold. The laws of philology have to be established by external comparison and induction. Earle.

esponsibility, etc., as if by hiding in or behind a hedge; to skulk; to slink; to shirk obligations. I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand and hiding mine honor in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch. Shak.

The doctrine that man's obligations are limited to, and dependent alone upon, man and the human relations.

An obligation by which property of a debtor was made over to his creditor in security of his debt.

Freedom or exemption from any charge, duty, obligation, office, tax, imposition, penalty, or service; a particular privilege; as, the immunities of the free cities of Germany; the immunities of the clergy.