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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

durance vile en · NOUN

Meanings

  1. (archaic, idiomatic, uncountable) A long prison sentence.
    • In durance vile here must I wake and weep 1794, Robert Burns, Epistle from Esopus to Maria:
    • That is, Messrs Brown and Hinton would have been in durance vile before the issue could be litigated: the High Court does not give advisory decisions. 1994 February 19, The Canberra Times, page 15, column 3:
    • Two of the tribe were captured and put in irons, Binmook and Tommy, whose photographs, taken when in durance vile, I have by me still. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 74: