Word Study
distract |
distracted |
distractedly |
distraction |
distrain |
distraint
| distrait
| distraught
| distress
| distress call
| distress signal
distraint
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Noun distraint has 1 sense
- distraint(n = noun.act) distress - the seizure and holding of property as security for payment of a debt or satisfaction of a claim; "Originally distress was a landlord's remedy against a tenant for unpaid rents or property damage but now the landlord is given a landlord's lien" is a kind of seizure
OXFORD DICTIONARY
distraint, n. Law the seizure of chattels to make a person pay rent etc. or meet an obligation, or to obtain satisfaction by their sale.
Etymology
DISTRAIN, after constraint
ROGET THESAURUS
distraint
Taking
N taking, reception, deglutition, appropriation, prehension, prensation, capture, caption, apprehension, deprehension, abreption, seizure, expropriation, abduction, ablation, subtraction, withdrawal, abstraction, ademption, adrolepsy, dispossession, deprivation, deprivement, bereavement, divestment, disherison, distraint, distress, sequestration, confiscation, eviction, rapacity, rapaciousness, extortion, vampirism, theft, resumption, reprise, reprisal, recovery, clutch, swoop, wrench, grip, haul, take, catch, scramble, taker, captor, subduction, taking, privative, prehensile, predaceous, predal, predatory, predatorial, lupine, rapacious, raptorial, ravenous, parasitic, bereft, at one fell swoop, give an inch and take an ell.
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