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  1. duress love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Constraint by threat; coercion: confessed under duress.
  2. n. Law Coercion illegally applied.
  3. n. Law Forcible confinement.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Hardness.
  2. n. Hardship; constraint; pressure; imprisonment; restraint of liberty; durance.
  3. n. In law, actual or apprehended physical restraint so great as to amount to coercion: a species of fraud in which compulsion in some form takes the place of deception in accomplishing the injury.
  4. To subject to duress or restraint; imprison.

Wiktionary

  1. n. obsolete Harsh treatment.
  2. n. Constraint by threat.
  3. v. To put under duress; to pressure.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Hardship; constraint; pressure; imprisonment; restraint of liberty.
  2. n. (Law) The state of compulsion or necessity in which a person is influenced, whether by the unlawful restrain of his liberty or by actual or threatened physical violence, to incur a civil liability or to commit an offense.
  3. v. To subject to duress.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. compulsory force or threat

Etymologies

  1. Middle English Old French duresse, from Latin duritia ("hardness"), from durus ("hard") (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English duresse, harshness, compulsion, from Old French durece, hardness, from Latin dūritia, from dūrus, hard; see deru- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • michaelt42 Bilby, I thought, having some Australian connections, that is was a type of clear, self-adhesive plastics tape for the fair sex, possibly also known as Sellatape. Dec 1, 2011

  • michaelt42 I am not a little puzzled to find duress and auspice linked together as "Related words/same context". They are virtual antonyms. So what is the relation? Dec 1, 2011

  • katiegiles "No I did the express register bein' that the prganizer was under some duress" Janet Evanovich-Finger Lickin Fifteen Sep 22, 2010

  • bilby *worried* So these aren't condoms for women? Dec 15, 2007

  • samoritan Why thank you! Dec 14, 2007

  • rolig Nashworthy! Dec 6, 2007

  • seanahan That's quite clever. Dec 6, 2007

  • samoritan The word "duress"
    Seems to suggest
    "Ur dress".
    And "under duress",
    "Under ur dress";
    More or less.
    Dec 6, 2007

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‘duress’ has been looked up 3671 times, loved by 4 people, added to 47 lists, commented on 8 times, and has a Scrabble score of 7.