REPRIEVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Reprieve

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/riprˈiv/ Listen

noun

Reprieve n.

A temporary suspension of the execution of a sentence, especially of a sentence of death. "The morning Sir John Hotham was to die, a reprieve was sent to suspend the execution for three days."

Interval of ease or relief; respite. "All that I ask is but a short reprieve, ll I forget to love, and learn to grieve."

verb

Reprieve v. t. (past & past part. reprieved; pres. part. reprieving)

To delay the punishment of; to suspend the execution of sentence on; to give a respite to; to respite; as, to reprieve a criminal for thirty days. "He reprieves the sinnner from time to time."

To relieve for a time, or temporarily. "Company, thought it may reprieve a man from his melaneholy yet can not secure him from his conscience."

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Etymology of 'Reprieve'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books

... judge.... All ... were cleared, saving three.... The deputy-governor signed a warrant for their speedy execution, and also of five others who were condemned at the former court.... But ... I sent a reprieve; ... the lieutenant-governor upon this occasion was enraged and filled with passionate anger, and refused to sit upon the bench at a superior court, at that time held at Charlestown; and, indeed, hath from the beginning hurried on these matters with ...

— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... the soul Beyond its reach. The kneeling Pastor rose Sadly, as when the Shepherd fails to snatch A wanderer from the Lion. But the truth Couch'd in that dismal cry of parting life He treasured up, and bore to those who held Power to investigate and to reprieve; And authorized by them with gladness sought The gloomy prison. Conrad there he found In sullen syncope of sickening thought, And cautiously in measured terms disclosed His liberation. Wondering doubt look'd forth From eyes that opening wide and wider ...

— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... been caught red-handed from the murder of his wife. His crime is patent. He has himself confessed it under torture. His only hope of reprieve lies in the colour which he may be able to impart to it; and his speech is cunningly adapted to the nature of the Court, and to the moral and mental constitution of those of whom it is composed. His judges are churchmen: ...

— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... principles that are forming in every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to the ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... inartificial. It is brought about too much by a tour de force, too entirely by the de par le roi, to deserve the praise bestowed on the rest of the piece. It resembles, in short, too nearly the receipt for making the "Beggars' Opera" end happily, by sending someone to call out a reprieve. But as it manifested at the same time the power of the prince, and afforded opportunity for panegyric on his acuteness in detecting and punishing fraud, Moliere, it is certain, might have his own good reasons for unwinding and disentangling ...

— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

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