essoin

English

Alternative forms

• essoign

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English essoyne, from Old French essoignier, from Medieval Latin exoniō, essoniō (“excuse oneself; accept an excuse”), from ex- + sonium + -ō, sonium being from Proto-West Germanic *sunnju (“care, need”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ɪˈsɔɪn/

Verb

essoin (third-person singular simple present essoins, present participle essoining, simple past and past participle essoined)

1. (UK, law, transitive) To excuse for failure to appear in court.
   • 1633, Francis Quarles, Divine Poems:

     I'll not essoin thee.

Derived terms

• essoiner, essoineur

Noun

essoin

1. (UK, law, obsolete) An excuse for not appearing in court at the return of process; the allegation of an excuse to the court.
   • 1726, [Jonathan Swift], Cadenus and Vanessa. A Poem, London: […] J. Roberts […], →OCLC, page 9:

     [W]ith Rejoinders and Replies, / Long Bills, and Anſvvers, ſtuft vvith Lies, / Demurr, Imparlance, and Eſſoign, / The Parties ne'er could Iſſue join: / For Sixteen Years the Cauſe vvas ſpun, / And then ſtood vvhere it firſt begun.

2. (obsolete) Excuse; exemption.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 20:

     From euery worke he chalenged essoyne.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “essoin”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Enosis, eosins, neosis, noesis, noises, nosies, noêsis, noësis, noēsis, onsies, ossein, sonsie