[ad. L. confiscātiōn-em, n. of action f. confiscāre to CONFISCATE. Cf. F. confiscation, -acion (14th c. in Littré).] The action of confiscating; the appropriation of private property to the sovereign or public treasury; seizure under public authority, as forfeited: a. of (goods, or some particular property).
1543. Act anent Defamatouris, in Reg. Acts & Decreets, I. 368. Under the pane of deid and confescatioun of thir gudis movable.
a. 1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., VII. xxiv. § 23. Confiscation of bishops’ livings.
1611. Bible, Ezra vii. 26. Let iudgement be executed speedily vpon him, whether it be vnto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
1683. Brit. Spec., 98. Claudius … remitted the Confiscations of their Goods.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 224. Before the confiscation of the Company’s charter.
1853. Froude, Hist. Eng., VII. 5. The Confiscation of the Abbey lands.
b. without of.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., an. 34 (R.). Owner of the realme, as … by confiscation acquired &… by free will surrendered vnto him.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., V. i. 428. His Possessions, Although by confiscation they are ours.
1741. Warburton, Div. Legat., II. 457. Attaint of blood and confiscation.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. xxv. 726. The wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations.
1848. Arnould, Mar. Insur. (1866), II. III. iii. 766. Confiscation … imports an act done in some way on the part of the government and beneficial to that government, though the proceeds need not strictly speaking be brought into its treasury.
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. xxii. 7. Domesday, which tells us by whom every scrap of land was held in the later days of William, and also by whom it had been held in the days of Eadward, is, above all things, a record of the great Confiscation.
c. of a person: i.e., his goods.
1754–62. Hume, Hist. Eng., I. iv. 111. The early confiscation of Harold’s followers might seem iniquitous.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., II. 195. In 1302, the poet was sentenced to banishment and confiscation.
2. Often used with implication of an unjust use of power; hence, colloq. Legal robbery by or with the sanction of the ruling power.
a. 1832. Mackintosh, France in 1815, Wks. 1846, III. 186. All confiscation is unjust. The French confiscation … is the most abominable example of that species of legal robbery.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., xxi. (1876), 278. It is confiscation to levy a tax on that which a man cannot save.
1869. Sir R. Palmer, in Daily News, 23 March. I do not deny that there are occasions which would justify acts which might be properly called confiscations.
3. Confiscated property.
a. 1774. Goldsm., trans. Scarron’s Comic Romance, II. 107. He would … even endeavour to restore him his confiscations.
