amerce

American  

[uh-murs] / əˈmɜrs /

verb (used with object)

amerced, amercing

1. to punish by imposing a fine not fixed by statute.

2. to punish by inflicting any discretionary or arbitrary penalty.

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amerce British  

/ əˈmɜːs /

verb

1. law to punish by a fine

2. to punish with any arbitrary penalty

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Other Word Forms

• amercement
  noun
• amercer
  noun
• amerceable
  adjective
• unamerceable
  adjective
• unamerced
  adjective

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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

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

amerce amerced amercing

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 Madox Ford

"Nay, but they will hold thee to ransom, and detain thee till it is brought: I heard them amerce thee at a thousand marks."

From The House of Walderne A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars by A. D. (Augustine David) Crake

The words achieve, agree, amerce, amount, acquit, acquaint, avow, &c. show the same prefix, derived through the medium of Old French.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various

But Plato here, O Athenians! and Crito Critobulus, and Apollodorus bid me amerce myself in thirty minæ, and they offer to be sureties.

From Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Henry Cary

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 Jean Ingelow

But when the gladsome hours the season brought Of payment, then the unjust King of Troy530 Dismiss'd us of our whole reward amerced By violence, and added threats beside.

From The Iliad of Homer Translated into English Blank Verse by William Cowper by William Cowper

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

“On the contrary,” answered he, “I am greatly obliged to him, for he has amerced me in a fine which I can pay without borrowing, or taking up money at interest.”

From The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero by Charles Duke Yonge

If the proper number failed to appear the whole township was amerced, the entry on the rolls being frequently of the form “Villata de A. est in misericordia quia non venit plenarie.”

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 8 "Hudson River" to "Hurstmonceaux" by Various

It occurs, as every one knows, in the clause of the Great Charter, which says that the villain who falls into the king's mercy is to be amerced 'saving his waynage.'

From Villainage in England Essays in English Mediaeval History by Paul Vinogradoff

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 William Gilmore Simms

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