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

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

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

In consideration of which piracies and molestations, your messengers demanded full restitution and recompense to be made, either vnto the damnified parties, or vnto their procurators.

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

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

In consideration whereof being vehemently moued by the damnified parties, he humbly besought your highnesse by his messengers and letters, for complement and execution of iustice.

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

The historian of the civil wars declares that Piso spoke up for Antony, saying that he should not be damnified by loose statements, but should be openly accused.

From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Anthony Trollope

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

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

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

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