Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See embroil.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "The Duke of Ormonde had, in truth, difficulties enough to struggle with in the government of Ireland, to preserve that kingdom in peace, and yet to give those who wished to imbroil it no handle of exception to the measures he took for that end." -- vol.ii. p. 477.

    An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Mary Frances Cusack 1864

  • Swell not into vehement actions which imbroil and confound the earth; but be one of those violent ones which force the kingdom of heaven.

    Christian Morals 1605-1682 1863

  • We do in the yearly bill reduce the casualties to about twenty - four, being such as may be discerned by common sense, and without art, conceiving that more will but perplex and imbroil the account.

    Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic William Petty 1655

  • Atkinson assist all in their power to imbroil the affairs of the Province.

    Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1792

  • Atkinson assist all in their power to imbroil the affairs of the Province.

    Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1792

  • Thirdly, Supposing a government wherein the person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred; yet this doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power, will not upon every slight occasion indanger him, or imbroil the government: for where the injured party may be relieved, and his damages repaired by appeal to the law, there can be no pretence for force, which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from appealing to the law: for nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him.

    Second Treatise of Civil Government 1690

  • Thirdly, Supposing a government wherein the person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred; yet this doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power, will not upon every slight occasion indanger him, or imbroil the government: for where the injured party may be relieved, and his damages repaired by appeal to the law, there can be no pretence for force, which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from appealing to the law: for nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him.

    Second Treatise of Government John Locke 1668

  • I should be glad to pursue this Discourse, and shew you the whole Series of the following Truths, which I have drawn from the former: But because for this purpose, it were now necessary for me to treat of severall questions, which are controverted by the learned, with whom I have no desire to imbroil my self, I beleeve it better for me to abstain from it; and so in generall onely to discover what they are, that I may leave the wisest to judge whether it were profitable to inform the publick more particularly of them.

    A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences Ren�� Descartes 1623

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