mulct

English

WOTD – 28 October 2012, 28 October 2014

Etymology

From Middle French mulcter (“to fine, punish”), from Latin multa (“penalty, fine”). Possibly a doublet of milk.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mʌlkt/
• Rhymes: -ʌlkt

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

mulct (plural mulcts)

1. (law) A fine or penalty, especially a pecuniary one.
   • 1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza LXIV:

     juries cast up what a wife is worth, / By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on / The lover, who must pay a handsome price, / Because it is a marketable vice.

   • 1838, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell, →OCLC, 1st part (1406–1492), page xxxvi:

     […] by the Salic law, no higher mulct was imposed for killing, than for kidnapping a slave.

   • 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XI, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The Act of Uniformity had laid a mulct of a hundred pounds on every person who, not having received episcopal ordination, should presume to administer the Eucharist.

Translations

pecuniary penalty — see fine

Verb

mulct (third-person singular simple present mulcts, present participle mulcting, simple past and past participle mulcted)

1. To impose such a fine or penalty.
   • 1897, Robert Seymour Conway, The Italic Dialects, Cambridge University Press, page 370:

     None of their numerous quarrels with Rome from 437 (?) B.C. onwards (Liv. 4. 17) led to any decisive result until their rebellion in the year 341 B.C., when the city, despite its strong position on a hill with steep sides, was taken (e.g. Polyb. 1. 65) and mulcted of half its territory.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     I say that I have seen the current issue of the Thursday Review, and I can quite understand him wanting to mulct the journal in substantial damages […]

2. (transitive) To swindle (someone) out of money.
   • 1945 December 23, “Arthur Train Dead; Created Mr. Tutt”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Mr. Train's most celebrated real life case was said to have been the prosecution in 1914 of Henry Siegel, operator of a chain of dry-goods stores, who was accused of mulcting thousands in a savings account scheme.

   • 1962, Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom‎^[2], page 140:

     However, the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public who have been mulcted or in other ways abused by members of the occupation.

Translations

impose a fine

• Bulgarian: глобявам (bg) (globjavam)
• Finnish: sakottaa (fi)
• French: mulcter (fr), verbaliser (fr)
• Polish: ukarać grzywną pf
• Portuguese: multar (pt)
• Russian: штрафова́ть (ru) impf (štrafovátʹ), оштрафова́ть (ru) pf (oštrafovátʹ)
• Spanish: multar (es)