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

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

"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

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 Henry Laing Gordon

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 perhaps I could pay you a mina of silver: in that sum, then, I amerce myself.

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

Therefore as to the present repair of the bridge the Abbot is acquitted, but he is to be amerced because he did not repair it before.

From The Evolution of an English Town by Gordon Home

Long that eve, The brethren grieved, noting his vacant stall, Yet thus excused their sadness: 'Well for him, And high his place in heaven; but woe to those Henceforth of services like his amerced!

From Legends of the Saxon Saints by Aubrey De Vere

At the Kirk Session of St. Cuthbert’s, held on June 18, 1640, it was decided that every snuff-taker in church be amerced in “twenty shillings for everie falt.”

From England in the Days of Old by William Andrews

On October 4, 1605, the Commissioners of the Sewers amerced him for the Rose, but return was made that it was then "out of his hands."

From Shakespearean Playhouses A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration by Joseph Quincy Adams

But even in this court it was the law "that none be amerced but by his peers."—Mirror of Justices, 49.

From An Essay on the Trial by Jury by Lysander Spooner

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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