amerce
Americanverb (used with object)
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to punish by imposing a fine not fixed by statute.
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to punish by inflicting any discretionary or arbitrary penalty.
verb
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law to punish by a fine
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to punish with any arbitrary penalty
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of amerce
1250–1300; Middle English amercy < Anglo-French amerci ( er ) to fine, representing ( estre ) a merci (to be) at (someone's) mercy. See a- 5, mercy
Explanation
To amerce is to impose a fine on someone as punishment. During the Middle Ages, the King might amerce you if you trespassed on his land to retrieve a lost ball. The word amerce was more common in medieval times, although it's still used in a legal context, along with amercement. Today when a court amerces someone, it legally orders them to pay a fine after finding them guilty of wrongdoing. The word comes from the French a merci, or "at the mercy," referring to the fact that a person facing amercement is at the mercy of the court.
Vocabulary lists containing amerce
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In your greatness ye shall change it; with your justice ye shall purify it; with your clemencies ye should it chasten and amerce.
From Privy Seal His Last Venture by Ford, Ford Madox
One came whose art men’s dread of are repressed: Mangled and writhing limb he lulled to rest, And stingless left the old Semitic curse; Him, too, for these blest gifts did Zeus amerce?
From Sir James Young Simpson and Chloroform (1811-1870) Masters of Medicine by Gordon, Henry Laing
Searching those edges of the universe, We leave the central fields a fallow part; To feed the eye more precious things amerce, And starve the darkened heart.
From Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. by Ingelow, Jean
But perhaps I could pay you a mina of silver: in that sum, then, I amerce myself.
From Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Cary, Henry
I amerce myself, then, to you in that sum; and they will be sufficient sureties for the money.
From Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Cary, Henry
No ecclesiastical person shall be amerced for his lay tenement, but according to the proportion of the others aforesaid, and not according to the value of his ecclesiastical benefice.
From Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins by Fiske, John
Disputed prisoners were to be placed in the hands of the warden, and the party found ultimately wrong to be amerced in a fine of ten pounds.
From Border Raids and Reivers by Borland, Robert
The timber was to be thinned anew—the tenants to be again amerced.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. by Various
Shall by him be amerced with penance due.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary by Webster, Noah
The Pepperers are first mentioned as a fraternity among the amerced guilds of Henry II., but had probably clubbed together at an earlier period.
From Old and New London Volume I by Thornbury, Walter
One of their measures has been questioned as unwise and impolitic—that, namely, for amercing and confiscating the estates of certain of the loyalists, and for banishing the most obnoxious among them.
From The Life of Francis Marion by Simms, William Gilmore
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
