Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of exacting.
  • noun Excessive or unjust demand; extortion.
  • noun Something exacted.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of demanding with authority and compelling to pay or yield; compulsory or authoritative demand; excessive or arbitrary requirement: as, the exaction of tribute or of obedience.
  • noun That which is exacted; a requisition; especially, something compulsorily required without right, or in excess of what is due or proper.
  • noun In law, a wrong done by an officer or one in pretended authority, by taking a reward or fee for that for which the law allows none. See extortion.
  • noun The calling of a party to answer. See exact, v., 4.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of demanding with authority, and compelling to pay or yield; compulsion to give or furnish; a levying by force; a driving to compliance; ; hence, extortion.
  • noun That which is exacted; a severe tribute; a fee, reward, or contribution, demanded or levied with severity or injustice.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of demanding with authority, and compelling to pay or yield; compulsion to give or furnish; a levying by force; a driving to compliance; as, the exaction to tribute or of obedience; hence, extortion.
  • noun That which is exacted; a severe tribute; a fee, reward, or contribution, demanded or levied with severity or injustice.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun act of demanding or levying by force or authority

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • For their spirits were broke and their manhood impair'd by foreign vices for exaction. (from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart)

    December 31, 2007

  • "Now he was smitten with compunction, yet irritated that so trifling an omission should be stored up against him after nearly two years of marriage. He was weary of living in a perpetual tepid honeymoon, without the temperature of passion yet with all its exactions."

    - Edith Wharton, 'The Age of Innocence'.

    September 19, 2009