durance

See also: Durance

English

Etymology

From Old French durance, from durer (“to last”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒʊəɹəns/, /ˈdjʊəɹəns/

Noun

durance (countable and uncountable, plural durances)

1. (archaic) Imprisonment; forced confinement.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     What bootes it him from death to be unbownd, / To be captived in endlesse duraunce / Of sorrow and despeyre without aleggeaunce!

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 373:

     the parson concurred, saying, the Lord forbid he should be instrumental in committing an innocent person to durance.

2. (obsolete) Duration.
3. (obsolete) Endurance, durability.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 49, column 2:

     Fal. Thou ſay'ſt true Lad: is not my Hoſteſſe of the Tauerne a moſt ſweet Wench? / Prin. As is the hony, my old Lad of the Caſtle: and is not a Buffe Ierkin a moſt ſweet robe of durance?

   • 1885–1887, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “[Poem 41]”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 63:

     O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap / May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small / Durance deal with that steep or deep.

Derived terms

• durance vile

 

Translations

(archaic) imprisonment

• Russian: заточе́ние (ru) n (zatočénije)

References

• “durance”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “durance”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “durance, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

• dauncer, unarced, uncared, unraced

Old French

Etymology

durer +‎ -ance.

Noun

durance oblique singular, f (oblique plural durances, nominative singular durance, nominative plural durances)

1. duration (length with respect to time)
   • c. 1289, Jacques d'Amiens, L'art d'amours:

     Si prent on tost tele acointance
     Qui puet avoir peu de durance

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)