deforcement

English

Etymology

Old French

Noun

deforcement (countable and uncountable, plural deforcements)

1. (law) A keeping out by force or wrong; a wrongful withholding, as of lands or tenements, to which another has a right.
2. (law, Scotland) Resistance to an officer in the execution of law.
   • 1816, Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquary, Oxford University Press, published 2002, page 397:

     There was something in the air and tone of the young soldier, which seemed to argue that his interference was not likely to be confined to mere expostulation; and which, if it promised finally of a process of battery and deforcement, would certainly commence with the unpleasant circumstances necessary for founding such a complaint.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “deforcement”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)