rescue

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To set free, as from danger or imprisonment; save. See Synonyms at save¹.
2. v. Law To take from legal custody by force.
3. n. An act of rescuing; a deliverance.
4. n. Law Removal from legal custody by force.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger, or evil; liberate from actual restraint; remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil: as, to rescue seamen from destruction by shipwreck.
2. In law, to liberate or take by forcible or illegal means from lawful custody: as, to rescue a prisoner from a constable. Synonyms and To retake, recapture.
3. To go to the rescue.
4. n. The act of rescuing; deliverance from restraint, violence, danger, or any evil.
5. n. In law, the forcible or illegal taking of a person or thing out of the custody of the law.
6. n. Synonyms Release, liberation, extrication, redemption.

Wiktionary

1. v. To save from any violence, danger or evil.
2. v. To free or liberate from confinement or other physical restraint.
3. v. To recover forcibly
4. v. To deliver by arms, notably from a siege
5. v. figuratively To remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil and sin.
6. n. An act or episode of rescuing, saving.
7. n. A liberation, freeing.
8. n. The forcible ending of a siege; liberation from similar military peril
9. n. A special airliner flight to bring home passengers who are stranded
10. n. A rescuee.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger, or evil; to liberate from actual restraint; to remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil
2. n. The act of rescuing; deliverance from restraint, violence, or danger; liberation.
3. n. The forcible retaking, or taking away, against law, of things lawfully distrained.
4. n. The forcible liberation of a person from an arrest or imprisonment.
5. n. The retaking by a party captured of a prize made by the enemy.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. free from harm or evil
2. v. take forcibly from legal custody
3. n. recovery or preservation from loss or danger