Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Distrain   Listen
verb
Distrain  v. t.  (past & past part. distrained; pres. part. distraining)  
1.
To press heavily upon; to bear down upon with violence; hence, to constrain or compel; to bind; to distress, torment, or afflict. (Obs.) "Distrained with chains."
2.
To rend; to tear. (Obs.) "Neither guile nor force might it (a net) distrain."
3.
(Law)
(a)
To seize, as a pledge or indemnification; to take possession of as security for nonpayment of rent, the reparation of an injury done, etc.; to take by distress; as, to distrain goods for rent, or of an amercement.
(b)
To subject to distress; to coerce; as, to distrain a person by his goods and chattels.





Click any word on the page to get its definition

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48






Text size:  A A


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Distrain" Quotes from Famous Books



... his own land. The approver—in whose house the assassination was planned, and in which the assassins resided while waiting an opportunity to destroy their victim—declared, in his examination on their trial, "that he was a good friend to him," and that he never knew him to distrain any man for rent, and yet he gave him no notice; and the intended murder was openly spoken of before a numerous family of children—ay, girls of fifteen years of age were privy to it; and yet no compunctious feelings touched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
 
Read full book for free!

... Stratford Records notice how a John Shakespeare was worried by suits brought against him by John Brown, in whose favour a writ of distraint was issued against Shakespeare in 1586. But the answer was returned that "he had nothing whereon to distrain." ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
 
Read full book for free!

... listen, will you?" said Godfrey, savagely. He had himself been drinking more than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom into uncalculating anger. "I want to tell you, I must hand over that rent of Fowler's to the Squire, or else tell him I gave it you; for he's threatening to distrain for it, and it'll all be out soon, whether I tell him or not. He said, just now, before he went out, he should send word to Cox to distrain, if Fowler didn't come and pay up his arrears this week. The Squire's short o' cash, and ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
 
Read full book for free!

... artificial leg, and there was fifty dollars owing to us on it. Unknown to us at the time, he had collected that fifty dollars from the said relative and with it paid his fine. To this day we never got a cent for our leg, and so really fined ourselves. Nor could we with any propriety distrain on one ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
 
Read full book for free!

... of a revenue-collector who would distrain the huts of the peasantry, that he might enrich the treasury of the sovereign, regardless of that maxim of the wise, who have said, "Whoever can offend the Most High, that he may gain the heart of a fellow-creature, God on high will instigate ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
 
Read full book for free!



Words linked to "Distrain" :   attach, levy, confiscate, reclaim



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com