Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act or policy of seizing persons and compelling them to serve in the military, especially in naval forces.
- noun The act or policy of seizing property for public use, especially for military purposes.
- noun The act of imposing a constructive trust or a lien upon property, as a matter of equity, to protect a person without legal title but with a legally recognized interest.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of impressing; the act of seizing for public use, or of compelling to enter the public service; compulsion to serve: as, the impressment of provisions, or of sailors or nurses.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of seizing for public use, or of impressing into public service; compulsion to serve.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of
seizing for public use;impressing into public service.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act of coercing someone into government service
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In this power of impressment is a good part of a ruler's greatness.
Abraham Lincoln: The Just Magistrate, the Representative Statesman, the Practical Philanthropist 1865
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Thus recalling the impressment of American citizens by the British prior to the war of 1812.
New Blog de Brantigny........................ 2008
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Thus recalling the impressment of American citizens by the British prior to the war of 1812.
Archive 2008-08-17 de Brantigny........................ 2008
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British custom of procuring sailors for the king's ships by a system of kidnapping, commonly known as impressment, was the cause of the outbreak.
The Naval History of the United States Volume 1 (of 2) Willis J. Abbot 1898
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However the British Government might justify in terms the impressment of seamen from American ships, or the delay of atonement for such an insult as that of the Chesapeake, the nation which endured the same, content with reams of argument instead of blow for blow, had sunk beneath contempt as an inferior race, to be cowed and handled without gloves by those who felt themselves the masters.
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He sees the Fifth Amendment prohibition on takings as a response to Revolutionary War "impressment" of personal property for military use.
Archive 2008-10-01 Mary L. Dudziak 2008
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He sees the Fifth Amendment prohibition on takings as a response to Revolutionary War "impressment" of personal property for military use.
Hardy on The Lecture Notes of St. George Tucker: A Framing Era View of the Bill of Rights Mary L. Dudziak 2008
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It was her practice to fill up her navy, in part at least, by the "impressment" of her sailor folk, taking them whenever needed, and wherever found -- in her own coast towns, or from the decks of her own mercantile marine.
Great Britain and the American Civil War Ephraim Douglass Adams
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Michilimackinac and Fort Niagara and Astoria on the Columbia go back to the United States; but of "impressment" and "right of search" and "embargo of neutrals" not a word.
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Against such "impressment" our government set up the claim of "sailors 'rights" -- denying the right of
A Brief History of the United States John Bach McMaster 1892
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