confiscate
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin cōnfiscātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin cōnfiscō (“to seize for the public treasury (fiscus)”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪt/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈkɑnfəˌskeɪt/
Audio (US): (file) - Hyphenation: con‧fis‧cate
Verb
[edit]confiscate (third-person singular simple present confiscates, present participle confiscating, simple past and past participle confiscated)
- (transitive) To use one's authority to lay claim to and separate a possession from its holder.
- In schools it is common for teachers to confiscate electronic games and other distractions.
- c. 1613, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi[1], London: John Waterson, published 1623, Act III, Scene 2:
- We doe confiscate
(Towards the satisfying of your accounts)
All that you haue.
- 1768, Alexander Dow (translator), The History of Hindostan by Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī, London: T. Becket & P.A. de Hondt, Volume 2, Section 4, p. 63,[2]
- The Persian having evacuated the imperial provinces, the vizier became more cruel and oppressive than ever: he extorted money from the poor by tortures, and confiscated the estates of the nobility, upon false or very frivolous pretences.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 241-242:
- Why, your cavalier is a rebel—an exile, whose property is confiscated, and for whose neck the gibbet stands prepared!
- 1894, Mark Twain, chapter 11, in Tom Sawyer Abroad[3], New York: Charles L. Webster & Co, page 174:
- Whenever you strike a frontier—that’s the border of a country, you know—you find a custom-house there, and the gov’ment officers comes and rummages among your things and charges a big tax, which they call a duty because it’s their duty to bust you if they can, and if you don’t pay the duty they’ll hog your sand. They call it confiscating, but that don’t deceive nobody, it’s just hogging, and that’s all it is.
- 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana[4], London: Macmillan, Part 2, p. 46:
- They took photographs of the bodies, but these were confiscated on return to Baghdad, and orders were given that nothing was to be said of what they had seen.
- 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 286:
- But his grandson Francis, a Yorkist friend of Richard III, backed the wrong side in the Wars of the Roses and was declared a traitor by Henry VII, who confiscated his estates.
Synonyms
[edit]- (take possession of or lay claim to): appropriate, arrogate, commandeer, expropriate, requisition, usurp, steal, rob
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]take possession of by authority
|
Adjective
[edit]confiscate (not comparable)
- (obsolete) Confiscated; seized and appropriated by the government for public use; forfeit.
- c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
- Therefore give out you are of Epidamnum, / Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
- […] thy lands and goods / Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate / Unto the state of Venice.
- 1642, Walter Raleigh, “Preservation of an Aristocraty”, in The Prince, or, Maxims of State[5], London, page 34:
- [N]ot to lay into the Exchequer, or Common Treasury, such goods as are confiscate, but to store them up as holy and consecrate things, which except it bee practised, confiscations, and fines of the Common people would bee frequent, and so this State would decay by weakening the people.
- 1821, Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. An Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts. […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 151:
- Thy goods are confiscate unto the state, / Thy name is razed from out her records, […]
See also
[edit]Italian
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]Verb
[edit]confiscate
- inflection of confiscare:
Etymology 2
[edit]Participle
[edit]confiscate f pl
Anagrams
[edit]Latin
[edit]Verb
[edit]cōnfiscāte
Spanish
[edit]Verb
[edit]confiscate
- second-person singular voseo imperative of confiscar combined with te
Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms suffixed with -ate (verb)
- English terms suffixed with -ate (adjective)
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English terms with obsolete senses
- Italian non-lemma forms
- Italian verb forms
- Italian past participle forms
- Latin non-lemma forms
- Latin verb forms
- Spanish non-lemma forms
- Spanish verb forms