▪ I. duress, duresse, n.
(djʊˈrɛs, ˈdjʊərɪs)
Forms: 4–9 duresse, 4 duresce, (5 dwresse, dewresse), 5–7 dures, 7– duress.
[a. obs. F. duresse, -esce, -ece, hardness, oppression, constraint:—L. dūritia (= dūritiēs), n. of quality f. dūr-us hard.]
† 1. Hardness; roughness, violence, severity; hardiness of endurance, resistance, etc.; firmness.
| c 1400 Test. Love i. i, By duresse of sorowe. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 135/2 Dwresse, or hardenesse, duricies. c 1460 R. Ros La Belle Dame 463 in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866) 67 An herte of suche duresse..ye wynne al this diffame by cruelte. 1651 N. Bacon Disc. Govt. Eng. ii. ii. 13 What he did was done by duress of mind. |
† 2. Harsh or severe treatment, infliction of hardship; oppression, cruelty; harm, injury; affliction.
| [1292 Britton v. iii. §1 Sauntz duresce fere.] c 1320 Seuyn Sag. (W.) 2189 Ac yif thou do thi sone duresse. c 1350 Will. Palerne 1074 Þe duresse þat he wrouȝt. c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems 118 (Mätz.) The wolfe in fieldis the shepe doth grete duresse. 1508 Dunbar Gold. Targe 170 Thair scharp assayes mycht do no dures To me. 1673 in Jackson's Wks. (1844) IX. 271 Taught to hunt counter for pleasure, and seek delights in difficulties and duresses. |
3. Forcible restraint or restriction; confinement, imprisonment; = durance 5. b. Harshness or strictness of confinement (cf. senses 1 and 2).
| c 1430 Life St. Kath. (Roxb. 1884) 13 She wyl..put me in duresse as þouȝ I were a faytour. c 1470 Harding Chron. (Prose add. Harl. MS.) cxcvi. 353 Kynge Richarde vnder dures of prison in the Toure of London. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. II. 40/1 He was suddenlie apprehended..and kept in duresse, by reson that he was suspected to be of no sound religion. 1651 N. Bacon Disc. Govt. Eng. ii. lix. 188 He kept the whole Synod in duress to have their votes for the election of his Son to be his successor. 1800 Wellington in Gurw. Desp. I. 249 What, then, is the degree of duresse which is to constitute imprisonment? 1857 Toulmin Smith Parish 376 Persons in prisons, workhouses, asylums, hospitals, or under any form of duress. 1880 M{supc}Carthy Own Times IV. lvi. 222 Some of the missionaries had been four years in duresse. |
4. Constraint, compulsion; spec. in Law, Constraint illegally exercised to force a person to perform some act.
Such compulsion may be by actual imprisonment, by threat of imprisonment or of loss of life or limb, or by physical violence. A deed or contract made under duress is voidable on a plea of duress at a subsequent trial.
| 1596 Spenser F.Q. iv. xii. 10 If he should through pride your doome undo, Do you by duresse him compell thereto, And in this prison put him here. 1601–2 W. Fulbecke 1st Pt. Parall. 3 If an infant make..a lease by dures, if the lessee enter, the infant may haue an assise. 1643 Prynne Sov. Power Parl. ii. 78 A Marriage, Bond, or deed made by Duresse or Menace, are good in Law, and not meerly void, but voidable only upon a Plea and Tryall. 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. i. 131 The constraint a man is under in these circumstances is called in law duress, from the Latin durities, of which there are two sorts; duress of imprisonment, where a man actually loses his liberty..and duress per minas, where the hardship is only threatened and impending. 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 550 The man was under duresse, and his act not voluntary, but imposed upon him by force. 1876 Digby Real Prop. x. §1. 369 Similar principles apply to conveyances by persons under duress, that is, under pressure of illegal bodily restraint, or of danger to life or limb. 1896 W. T. Stead Pref. to Keble's Chr. Y. 2, I made the omissions with reluctance, under duress from the inexorable printer. |
b. ellipt. for plea of duress.
| 1613 Sir H. Finch Law (1636) 10 One imprisoned till he bee content to make an obligation..being at large, yet he shall auoid it by dures of imprisonment. |
▪ II. † duˈress, v. Obs.
[f. prec. n.]
trans. To subject to duress, constraint, or oppression. Hence † duˈressor, he who subjects another to duress.
| a 1626 Bacon Max. & Uses Com. Law xxii. (1636) 81 If the party duressed doe make any motion or offer. Ibid., If it had beene moved from the duressor, who had said [etc.]. |