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law or judicial decision to the commission of a crime, offense, or trespass. Death is the penalty imposed. Milton.

An absolving, or setting free from guilt, sin, or penalty; forgiveness of an offense. "Government . . . granting absolution to the nation." Froude.

To free from a penalty; to pardon; to remit (a sin); -- said of the sin or guilt. In his name I absolve your perjury. Gibbon.

The act of adjuring; a solemn charging on oath, or under the penalty of a curse; an earnest appeal. What an accusation could not effect, an adjuration shall. Bp. Hall.

To charge, bind, or command, solemnly, as if under oath, or under the penalty of a curse; to appeal to in the most solemn or impressive manner; to entreat earnestly. Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho. Josh. vi. 26. The high priest…

The fine and penalty imposed for the offense of adultery.

To assess or reduce, as an arbitrary penalty or amercement, to a certain and reasonable sum. Amercements . . . were affeered by the judges. Blackstone.

To punish by a pecuniary penalty, the amount of which is not fixed by law, but left to the discretion of the court; as, the amerced the criminal in the sum on the hundred dollars.

The infliction of a penalty at the discretion of the court; also, a mulct or penalty thus imposed. It differs from a fine,in that the latter is, or was originally, a fixed and certain sum prescribed by statue for an offense; but an amercement is arbitrary. Hence, the act or practice of affeering. [See Affeer.] Blacksto…

To attach or connect, as a consequence, condition, etc.; as, to annex a penalty to a prohibition, or punishment to guilt.

A pecuniary mulct or penalty laid upon a delinquent for offending against a ban; as, a mulct paid to a bishop by one guilty of sacrilege or other crimes. Ban of the empire (German Hist.), an imperial interdict by which political rights and privileges, as those of a prince, city, or district, were taken away.…

A penalty at beast, omber, etc. Hence: To be beasted, to be beaten at beast, omber, etc. Beast royal, the lion. [Obs.] Chaucer.

The infliction of the death penalty upon one person in every hundred, as in cases of mutiny.

The change of a penalty or punishment by the pardoning power of the State; as, the commutation of a sentence of death to banishment or imprisonment. Suits are allowable in the spiritual courts for money agreed to be given as a commutation for penance. Blackstone.

To exchange; to put or substitute something else in place of, as a smaller penalty, obligation, or payment, for a greater, or a single thing for an aggregate; hence; to lessen; to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life; to commute tithes; to commute charges for fares. The sounds wa…

ce against; to sentence to punishment, suffering, or loss; to doom; -- with to before the penalty. Driven out from bliss, condemned In this abhorred deep to utter woe. Milton. To each his sufferings; all are men, Condemned alike to groan. Gray. And they shall condemn him to death. Matt. xx. 18. The thief condemned, in…

ral punishment (law), punishment applied to the body of the offender, including the death penalty, whipping, and imprisonment.

Power to harm; subjection or liability to penalty. [Obs.] See In one's danger, below. You stand within his danger, do you not Shak. Covetousness of gains hath brought [them] in dangerof this statute. Robynson (More's Utopia).

line drawn within or around a military prison, to cross which involves for a prisoner the penalty of being instantly shot. -- Dead load (Civil Engin.), a constant, motionless load, as the weight of a structure, in distinction from a moving load, as a train of cars, or a variable pressure, as of wind. -- Dead march (M…

of a debt, obligation, office, and the like; acquittal. Too secure of our discharge From penalty. Milton.