immure

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WOTD – 7 October 2011    

Contents

English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Latin im, combining variant of in (“in”), + mūrus (“wall”).

Pronunciation [edit]

Audio (US)
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Verb [edit]

immure (third-person singular simple present immures, present participle immuring, simple past and past participle immured)

  1. (transitive) To cloister, confine, imprison: to lock up behind walls.
    • 1799, Mary Meeke, Elleſmere: A Novel, Volume IV, William Lane (publisher), pages 219–220:
      The gentlemen looked at each other for a ſolution of this ſtrange event, each preſuming an order had been obtained to again immure the unfortunate Clara.
    • 1880, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, Preface,
      In a happy moment for the Levy-Lawson-Levis, Lady Lytton was betrayed, seized, and immured. The Editor saw his chance, and made the Metropolis ring with the outrage. Levi was saved; so also was Lady Lytton.
    • 1914, Emily Dickinson, Immured in Heaven!, in The Single Hound, republished 1924, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (introduction), The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson,
      Immured in Heaven! / What a Cell! / Let every Bondage be, / Thou sweetest of the Universe, / Like that which ravished thee!
    • 1933 December, Albert H. Cotton, “A Note on the Civil Remedies of Injured Consumers”, in David F. Cavers (editor), Duke University School of Law, Law and Contemporary Problems, Volume I Number I, Duke University Press (1934), page 71:
      This rule is followed in all common-law jurisdictions, although it was not adopted by the House of Lords until 1932, and then only with vigorous dissent, in a case where a mouse was immured in a ginger-beer bottle.
  2. (transitive) To put or bury within a wall.
    John's body was immured Thursday in the mausoleum.
    • 1906, Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, Volume 1, page 807,
      The dreadful punishment of immuring persons, or burying them alive in the walls of convents, was undoubtedly sometimes resorted to by monastic communities.
  3. (transitive, crystallography and geology, of a growing crystal) To trap or capture (an impurity); chiefly in the participial adjective immured and gerund or gerundial noun immuring.
    • 1975, American Institute of Physics, American Crystallographic Association, Soviet Physics, Crystallography, Volume 19, Issues 1-3, page 296,
      On increasing the supercooling, the step starts completely immuring the impurity and v rises sharply.

Synonyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Related terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

to lock up behind walls
to put or bury within a wall

Noun [edit]

immure (plural immures)

  1. (obsolete) A wall; an enclosure.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
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