damnify

American  

[dam-nuh-fahy] / ˈdæm nəˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

Law.

damnified, damnifying

1. to cause loss or damage to.

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damnify British  

/ ˈdæmnɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. law to cause loss or damage to (a person); injure

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Other Word Forms

• damnification
  noun
• undamnified
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of damnify

1505–15; < Middle French damnifier, Old French < Late Latin damnificāre, derivative of Latin damnific ( us ) harmful, equivalent to damn ( um ) damage + -ificus ( see -i-, -fic); see -ify

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

damnify damnified damnifying

But seeing it was our happs to damnify each other unwillingly, let us be content with our harms, and lay the fault where it was, and so become friends.

From Fair Em by Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works)

In Haverhill, in 1708, young women were permitted to build pews, provided they did not "damnify the Stairway."

From Sabbath in Puritan New England by Alice Morse Earle

"Alexander commanded his soldiers neither to damnify Pindarus, the poet, nor any of his family."

From Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters by John Earle

Secondly, a man may damnify another by preventing him from obtaining what he was on the way to obtain.

From Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province by Saint Thomas Aquinas

Continental jurists give a wider meaning to barratry, as meaning any wilful act by the master or crew, by whatever motive induced, whereby the owners or charterers are damnified.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 "Banks" to "Bassoon" by Various

I drop all points of controversy, weighty though these be; I take your defaced and damnified kirk on your own terms; and I ask you, Are you a worthy minister? 

From Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson

The most gracious prince is bounde to doe his indeuor, that the parties damnified may haue restitution of their goods made vnto them, or at least complete iustice and iudgement without delay.

From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 05 Central and Southern Europe by Richard Hakluyt

There be also books which are partly useful and excellent, partly culpable and pernicious; this work will ask as many more officials, to make expurgations and expunctions, that the commonwealth of learning be not damnified.

From Areopagitica A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England by John Milton

I drop all points of controversy, weighty though these be; I take your defaced and damnified kirk on your own terms; and I ask you, Are you a worthy minister?

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI by Robert Louis Stevenson

The thirty-first question was so framed that, if truthfully replied to, it was certain to elicit facts which would form the groundwork of damnifying strictures on the principal abuses of the time.

From The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion by John Charles Dent

Also the British High Commissioner has issued a damnifying proclamation against Jameson and all British abettors of his game.

From Following the Equator, Part 7 by Mark Twain

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