durance vile
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]- (archaic, idiomatic) A long prison sentence.
- 1794, Robert Burns, Epistle from Esopus to Maria:
- In durance vile here must I wake and weep
- 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 74:
- Two of the tribe were captured and put in irons, Binmook and Tommy, whose photographs, taken when in durance vile, I have by me still.
- 1994 February 19, The Canberra Times, page 15, column 3:
- That is, Messrs Brown and Hinton would have been in durance vile before the issue could be litigated: the High Court does not give advisory decisions.