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Duress   Listen
verb
Duress  v. t.  To subject to duress. "The party duressed."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Duress" Quotes from Famous Books



... our duress here we were driven below by raw, incessant rain, and the confinement became irksome. At length, during the day and night of July 14th, the ice finally made off with itself, and the next morning the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... Belgium. If Belgium is compelled to submit to allow her neutrality to be violated, of course the situation is clear. Even if by agreement she admitted the violation of her neutrality, it is clear she could only do so under duress. The smaller States in that region of Europe ask but one thing. Their one desire is that they should be left alone and independent. The one thing they fear is, I think, not so much that their integrity but that their independence should be ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... unlawful act cannot be binding. One has, indeed, no moral right to make such a promise, though if the case be one of extreme urgency and peril, extenuating circumstances may reduce the wrong to an infinitesimal deviation from the right; but, when the duress is over, no considerations can justify the performance of what it was wrong to promise. But a promise, not in itself immoral or unlawful, is binding, though made under duress. Thus, if a man attacked by bandits has had his life spared on condition of a pecuniary ransom, he is bound ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... up thoughtfully. Tom's reply to his last question about Mirov having "friends around town" had convinced Ames that the young inventor was a prisoner, speaking under duress. Moreover, it had seemed as if someone else's breathing was faintly audible in the ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... Viola, through the hunter, Stain. What was back of the earnest request for him to come and see her at her mother's house? Was she in trouble? Was she in need of his help? Was she depending upon him, her blood relation, for counsel in an hour of duress? He was sadly beset by ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... either so young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress and restrained by bodily fear—of the townspeople's cats. That all these cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be responsible ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... brought a firm refusal from Mr. Gerard to yield to such pressure. He also expressed doubt whether the newspaper representatives could be utilized to urge acceptance of the protocol under pain of detention. Thenceforth nothing further was heard of the protocol. Germany was undoubtedly exercising duress in requiring Mr. Gerard to sign it, since his passports were withheld and a needless guard had been ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" asserts its well-known superiority to "you." All this the author evidently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... the situation thoroughly and had planned it out in some detail. Besides the empty-faced Larry, who had driven the car, they were introduced to two more of Crowley's confederates, neither of whom gave any indication that the three were present under duress. The first was a heavy-set, moist palmed southerner with a false air of the jovial. He shook hands heartily, said nothing with a good many words for a few minutes and then excused himself. The third confidant was an older man of sad mien who would have passed ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... unbearable offenders, tarred and feathered them, and drummed them out of the township. When feathers were lacking for the decoration, the white fluff of the native bullrush made a handy substitute. In the absence of a gaol, the Vigilants were known to keep a culprit in duress by shutting him up for the night in a sea-chest, ventilated by means ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... knelt before her to make the pretence of suing for the pardon which they extorted by force of arms and duress. When each in his turn had made the brief pleading oration he had prepared, she dried her eyes and controlled ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... oath, in the presence of a large assembly of all the great potentates and chieftains of the realm, by which he should bind himself, under the most awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold made no objection to this either. He considered himself as, in fact, in duress, and his actions as not free. He was in William's power, and was influenced in all he did by a desire to escape from Normandy, and once more recover his liberty. He accordingly decided, in his own mind, that whatever oaths ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... en route to Ladysmith. That their plunge might stimulate Methuen to burn his boots and brave the turgid waters of the Modder, was the fervent wish of Kimberley at the end of fourteen weeks of irksome, emaciating duress. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... said, found many of these hours of duress far from unpleasant; for among the prisoners in the Tower was none other than the Princess Elizabeth, sister to the Queen (and her successor on the throne); and we are told, on what authority does not appear, that there were many sweet and stolen meetings between the fair ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... reported to General Mason, Provost-marshal General, and was told to hold himself as in duress until further orders, and to be ready to appear at headquarters at short notice when called for. He was put on parole, as it were. He came down to San Jose and stirred my congregation with several of his powerful discourses. In the meantime the arrest had gotten into the newspapers. Nothing ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... and there was a county jail. The fact was worth forty dollars to the lawyer who was approached by an old darky in behalf of a son languishing in duress. The lawyer surveyed the tattered client as he listened, and decided that he would be lucky to obtain a ten-dollar fee. He named that amount as necessary to secure the prisoner's release. Thereupon, the old colored man drew ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... him through the kitchen, where the cook cried out unintelligibly, seeming to summon Adelia, who was not present. Through the back yard went captor and prisoner, the latter now maintaining a seated posture—his pathetic conception of dignity under duress. Finally, into a small shed or tool-house, behind Mrs. Baxter's flower-beds, went Clematis in a hurried and spasmodic manner. The instant the door slammed he lifted his voice—and was bidden to use it now ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... May 28th, there was a meeting at Faneuil Hall, and an attack on the Court House where Mr. Burns was illegally held in duress. In the attack a Mr. Batchelder was killed,—a man hired to aid in this kidnapping, as he had been in the stealing of Mr. Sims. To judge from the evidence offered before the Grand-Jury of the Massachusetts Court, and especially from the testimony of Marshal Freeman, it appears he was ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... the matter struck me. It is intolerable for a human being to go on doing any task as a penance, under duress. No matter what the work is, one must spiritualize it in some way, shatter the old idea of it into bits and rebuild it nearer to the heart's desire. How was I ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... from the world without a word of explanation or confession, Kitty and Lucy both sat down under duress to pen a last appeal to the little man who, despite his stern disregard, somehow held a place in their hearts. Kitty could have wept with vexation at the thought of not seeing him again—and after she ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... grounds that the *death-penalty for murder* can be justified. The life of the very worst of men should be sacrificed only for the preservation of life; for if it be unsafe to leave them at liberty, they may be kept under restraint and duress, without being wholly cut off from the means of enjoyment and improvement. The primeval custom of the earlier nations required the nearest kinsman of the murdered man to kill the murderer with his own ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... so-called treaty of protectorate recently concluded between Korea and Japan was extorted at the point of the sword and under duress and therefore is null and void. I never consented to it and never will. Transmit to American Government. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... awful home of Zeus, whose shroud The thunder is—'twixt Ida and the main Behold gray Ilios, Priam's fee, the plain About her like a carpet; from whose height The watchman, ten years watching, every night Counteth the beacon fires and sees no less Their number as the years wax and duress Of hunger thins the townsmen day by day— More than the Greeks kill plague and famine slay. Here in their wind-swept city, ten long years Beset and in this tenth in blood and tears And havocry to fall, old Priam's sons Guard still their gods, their wives ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... confessions of Margaret Kerry, a young white woman of many aliases but most commonly called Peggy, who was an inmate of Hughson's disreputable house and a prostitute to negro slaves. When Mary testified under duress that Hughson was not only a habitual recipient of stolen goods from the negroes but was the head of a conspiracy among them which had already effected the burning of many houses and was planning a general revolt, the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... was equally guilty with his old partner, Montgomery. But the latter had benefited more largely from the crime, and Gordon had been a party to it under duress. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... contumacious jurors did not long remain in duress. The pertinacious Bushel, being a man of substance, took steps to legally rescue himself and fellows, and soon succeeded. The affair had an important after echo at the trial in New York, of John Peter Zenger, the Palatine Printer, in 1735, ...
— The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead • various

... the nation. The most alarming symptoms of insubordination began to appear in different parts of the kingdom. In Andalusia, in particular, a confederation of the nobles was organized, with the avowed purpose of rescuing the queen from the duress, in which it was said she was held by her husband. At the same time the most tumultuous scenes were exhibited in Cordova, in consequence of the high hand with which the Inquisition was carrying matters there. Members of many of the principal families, including persons of both sexes, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... N. compulsion, coercion, coaction[obs3], constraint, duress, enforcement, press, conscription. force; brute force, main force, physical force; the sword, ultima ratio[Lat]; club law, lynch law, mob law, arguementum baculinum[obs3], le droit du plus fort[Fr], martial law. restraint &c. 751; necessity &c. 601; force majeure[Fr]; Hobson's choice. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... herself to it, and hasted to intercede with her angry husband, beseeching him to refrain the impetuous wrath which would hurry him in his old age to murder his daughter and imbrue his hands in the blood of his servant, and vent it in some other way, as by close confinement and duress, whereby the culprits should be brought to repent them of their fault in tears. Thus, and with much more to the like effect, the devout lady urged her suit, and at length prevailed upon her husband to abandon his murderous design. Wherefore, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... in his duress May go as far as dreams have gone; Who sees a little may do less Than many who ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... true that Texas claimed the eastern bank of the Rio Grande from its source to its mouth; and while the Texans held Santa Anna prisoner, under duress of arms and the stronger pressure of his own conscience, which assured him that he deserved death as a murderer, "he solemnly sanctioned, acknowledged, and ratified" their independence with whatever boundaries they chose to claim; but the Bustamente administration lost no time in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... glad of, since it gave him an opportunity to wean his soldiers away from him. But it proved a godsend for Berkeley. At about midnight a message came to him from Captain Larrimore, explaining that he and his crew served under duress, that there were only forty soldiers left on board the Rebecca, and that if he could send thirty or forty gentlemen to the ship, he was sure they, with the help of the sailors, ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... enforces good behavior, at least outwardly. We obey the Law because if we don't we will be punished. Our obedience is inspired by fear. We obey under duress and we do it resentfully. Now what kind of righteousness is this when we refrain from evil out of fear of punishment? Hence, the righteousness of the Law is at bottom nothing but love of sin ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... line to where these are standing. At sight of Oswald, little Jack, speedily waiving payment, cuts across Broadway, down Exchange Alley, where he jostles reveries of that brass-buttoned official, and, through official duress, pilots him back to the street. Here Michael Patrick O'Brien hastily fits Jack's description of Oswald to that dazed old man, whom he pompously arrests and valiantly escorts toward "Old Slip" ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... last chapter, soon after Queen Elizabeth sought refuge there, at the time of Edward's expulsion from the kingdom. Of course, the first thing which Edward did after making his public entry into London was to proceed to the sanctuary to rejoin his wife, and deliver her from her duress, and also to see ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... These advertised humilities—decreed By proclamation, that we may be freed, And mercy find for once, and saving grace, Even while we forfeit all that made the race Worthy of Heavenly favor—and profess Our faith and homage only through duress, And dread of danger which ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... do. That is the point with me. If you report no cause for interference down in Paraguay, there will be no danger of our getting into trouble. Your government wouldn't make a demand for Lyman's release, although it was understood he was kept in duress by a high official of the republic. Still, it sends you out to act unofficially. Now, this being the case, you are the person I ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... that morning, shortly after a smiling interview with the ladies of Fort Sibley, in which, with infinite spirit and the most perfect self-control, Miss Beaubien had informed them that she had promised to lead with Mr. Jerrold, and, since he was in duress, she would lead with no one, and sent them off wondering and greatly excited, there came running up to the carriage a telegraph messenger boy, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... this girl, with the others—if others have been claimed by the probation officer—goes out into the empty street, under the light of the tall tower, whose clock has begun all over again its monotonous race toward midnight. No policeman accompanies the group. The girls are under no manner of duress. They have promised to go home with Miss Miner, and they go. The night's adventure, entered into with dread, with callous indifference, or with thoughtless mirth, ends in a quiet bedroom and ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... it is even more idle to say that they could have been averted by treaty. Here and there, under exceptional circumstances or when a given tribe was feeble and unwarlike, the whites might gain the ground by a treaty entered into of their own free will by the Indians, without the least duress; but this was not possible with warlike and powerful tribes when once they realized that they were threatened with serious encroachment on their hunting-grounds. Moreover, looked at from the standpoint of the ultimate result, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... pursues a public calling and sustains such relations to the public that the people must of necessity deal with him, and are under a moral duress to submit to his terms if he is unrestrained by law, then, in order to prevent extortion and an abuse of his position, the price he may charge for his services may be regulated by law. When private property is affected with a public interest it ceases ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... of two lovers, an honorable aristocrat and a girl of humble birth, who are done to death through a vile intrigue which is dictated by the exigencies of an infamous political regime. By means of a compromising letter, which is not forged but extorted under duress, the lover is made to suspect his sweetheart's fidelity; and she, though innocent, is prevented by scruples of conscience from undeceiving him. In a jealous fury he gives her poison and then partakes of it himself. The mischief is wrought not so much by the wickedness ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... leaves, pale-faced and trembling. After a moment's rest, they turned southward to where the lean brown road went paving a deep corridor, straight, silent, its black walls towering. Distance and gloom lent these a grim symmetry, suggestive of duress; above, a grey ribbon of sky issued a stony comfort, such as prisoners use.... With a shiver, Every turned away his head. To the north the ground fell sharply, and the cut of the road vouchsafed a glimpse of what it led to—woods, woods, woods, swelling, rising, tumbling, bolstering one another ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... evil when Burgundy took Nancy from Lorraine," cried Yolanda, excitedly. "The hollow conventions made with Lorraine after the capture of that city were but the promises of a man under duress. The only ties that will bind a narrow man are those of immediate self-interest. There can be no lasting treaty between France and Burgundy so long as King Louis covets Flanders and is able to bribe our neighbors. These conventions between Burgundy, Lorraine, Bourbon, and St. Pol will ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... and leopards would feed upon them next; Adversaries, dragons, wyverns, serpents, Griffins were there, thirty thousand, no less, Nor was there one but on some Frank it set. And the Franks cried: "Ah! Charlemagne, give help!" Wherefore the King much grief and pity felt, He'ld go to them but was in duress kept: Out of a wood came a great lion then, 'Twas very proud and fierce and terrible; His body dear sought out, and on him leapt, Each in his arms, wrestling, the other held; But he knew not which conquered, nor which fell. That ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... [Sidenote: 1543] When Enzinas printed his Spanish Bible at Antwerp the printer told him that in that city the Scriptures had been published in almost every European language, doubtless an exaggeration but a significant one. Arrested and imprisoned at Brussels for this cause, Enzinas received while under duress visits from four hundred citizens of that city who were Protestants. To control the book trade an oath was exacted of every bookseller [Sidenote: 1546] not to deal in heretical works and the first "Index ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... yawning wood into its place, picked up his handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which had caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. "Man is a very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cherished project, knowing Francis' temper and his stubbornness when crossed. She merely shrugged her white shoulders and watched him closely. The monarch had not scrupled once to break his covenant with Charles, holding that treaties made under duress, by force majeure, were legally void, while now— But the king was composed of contradictions, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... it? Then suppose you could go with the bayonet—which I think now, under the brighter dawn of a better day which we begin to realize, you are not going to have the liberty to do—suppose you were to go with the bayonet and present it to the other eleven States, and they, acting under duress, not as free agents and as free men, could get some people in their section so miserable and poor in spirit and craven in soul as to vote to adopt in their Legislatures such an amendment, would it command the respect of any body in this land? Not at all. Open your doors, sir; ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... gestures of the accompanying performance. No pledge is enforced if a single form be omitted or misplaced, but, on the other hand, if the forms can be shown to have been accurately proceeded with, it is of no avail to plead that the promise was made under duress or deception. The transmutation of this ancient view into the familiar notion of a Contract is plainly seen in the history of jurisprudence. First one or two steps in the ceremonial are dispensed with; then the others are simplified or permitted to be neglected on certain conditions; lastly, a few ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... people on this question of emancipation. Nothing for humanity, nothing to humanity. Whoever drew it, be he Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Seward, it is clear that the writer was not in it either with his heart or with his soul; it is clear that it was done under moral duress, under the throttling pressure of events. How ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... could not, if you would, give what had been Peace, not distress; Some warping cords of destiny had held You in duress. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... export and import duties, writes all state-papers, assembles and dismisses the island legislature according to his good pleasure, doles out to the Queen a yearly allowance of a thousand pounds, puts her in duress in her own house, if her conduct displeases him, and will not allow her to see strangers, except by his permission. Few will believe that zeal for the honor of the Catholic Church prompted Louis Philippe to inflict so disproportioned a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... freed him in September from actual duress. His disposition of the fleet of which he continued titular 'General,' though Frobisher and Burgh had royal commissions, proved successful. Already a Biscayan of 600 tons burden, the Santa Clara, had been captured and sent to England. This was the prize of which, and its prize crew, Ralegh ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... of the savage is not inferior to that by which the laws of the civilized are prescribed, in their dealings with one another. The treaty thus extorted from their leaders, while in a state of duress, was disregarded by the great body of the nation. They watched their opportunity, and, scarcely had the Governor disbanded his forces, when the ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... ratepayers of London, compound a felony, or enter into conspiracy to depose the King himself, and, being detected, very properly be put under restraint, or visited with chastisement either deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true inference from the premisses would be that, although duress or banishment from the kingdom might be essential, yet punishment, so called, ought not to be visited upon the offender. For he or she could not be nostri juris, and that which was abominable ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... did not hold her secret. But if he did hold it? If he did hold it, and the cruel power it gave? If he held it, he who had only to lift his hand to consign her to duress on a charge so dark and dangerous that innocence itself was no protection against it? So plausible that even her lover had for a short time held it true? ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... coat buttoned tightly across the questionable waistcoat, "my dear lady, tell her it will be wicked—damnable—beg pardon, beg pardon; but I must repeat, dear lady, it will be wicked and wrong—a damning wrong, if she keeps the promise obtained by force—by force, lady, by duress. Tell her I absolve her from the promise. I will go to Rome and get the Pope's absolution. No! that will be worse than none for Rita; she is a Baptist. Well, well, I'll hunt out the head Baptist,—the ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... self-styled servants of the Highest Constrained by earthly duress to embrace Mighty imperiousness as it were choice, And hand the Italian sceptre unto one Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin, Professed at first to flout antiquity, Scorn limp conventions, smile at ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... looked at her composedly for a moment and said, "Mistress Marget, I am the last person in the world to think that any form of duress would influence your actions. On the other hand, since the opportunity has come, I make bold, even in the presence of Captain Gordon and our respective followers, to say a word in frankness, out of regard for you and your house. There are ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne



Words linked to "Duress" :   force



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