v. Forms: 3–6 forclose, 6 Sc. foirclois, 6– foreclose. [f. forclos-, stem of forclore, f. for-, FOR- pref.3 + clore to CLOSE. Some of the senses may have originated from or have been influenced by the identification of the prefix with FOR-1 (of. OE. forclýsan to close, stop up), or with FOR-2, FORE- (cf. preclude).]
1. trans. To bar, exclude, shut out completely.
[1292. Britton, VI. ii. § 8. Les plus proscheins heirs, qi par les feffours en sount forclos.]
1413. Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton), I. xxi. (1859), 21. Thenne am I nought forclosyd oute of this Court [orig. forclos donques ne suis ie pas] but that I may frely accuse and sey myn auys.
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, xii. 289. He forclosed me fro all my kynsmen.
1563. Mirr. Mag., Ld. Hastings, xvii.
| But greenish waues, and heauie lowring skies | |
| All comfort else forclosed our exiled eies. |
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 314 b. Where is that charitie … ought not deteigne, and foreclose other men from the knowledge of holy Scripture.
1732. Neal, Hist. Purit., I. 229. The Puritans being thus foreclosed and shut out of the Church by Sequestrations, Imprisonments, the taking away of their Licences to preach, and the Restraint of the Press.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 125. My flight to foreclose from the chase of my foes!
1883. L. O. Pike, Yearbks. 11 & 12 Edw. III., Preface, p. xxiv. The certificate of the bishop that she had never been joined in lawful matrimony (causa metus) would be a sufficient answer to foreclose her should she bring a writ of dower.
† b. To bar or stop up (one’s) passage. Obs.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 303/143. Þe se for-closede hire sone.
† 2. To close fast, close or stop up, block up (an opening, way, etc.) Obs.
1547. Hall, Chron., Hen. VII., 43 a. All by waies beyng stopped and forclosed, all hope of flight should be taken from them.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., II. 106. The entrie vnto it is forclosed & impossible to be come to?
1600. Holland, Livy, VIII. xxiv. (1609), 298. The continuall raines which overflowed all the fields, had foreclosed and stopped the passages three wayes betwene his armies.
1655. Calthrop, Reports (1670), 158. If any common way or common course of water be foreclosed or letted.
1751. J. Brown, Shaftesb. Charac., 177. Every Avenue is foreclosed, by which Virtue should enter.
3. To preclude, hinder, or prohibit (a person) from (an action) or to do something; to hinder the action, working, or activity of.
1536. Act 28 Hen. VIII., c. 7 § 6. Children borne … vnder the same mariage … shall be … vtterly forclosed, excluded and barred to claime … as laufull heyre.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 19 b. The Imbargo with Spaine … foreclosed this trade. Ibid., 112 b. Foreclosing all others, saue themselves, from dredging of Oysters.
1648. Prynne, Plea for Lords, 36. This Protestation did not foreclose the Lords in this or future Parliaments to give Judgement against Commoners in other cases of Felony and Treason.
1681. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 145. He had obtained his liberty on bail by reason of a surreptitious copy from the clerk of the parliament, that there was no impeachment against him; but that the court had since inquired into it, and found there was an impeachment against him entred in the lords house; and therefore their hands being foreclosed, they discharged his bail, and remanded him to the Gatehouse.
1705. Stanhope, Paraphr., I. 187. After having denounced Misery and Death, as the deserved Wages of Wickedness, had thereby concluded all Mankind under this fatal Sentence, in that all had sinned; and so foreclosed himself from remitting the Guilt and Punishment, without a Satisfaction made for the Offences and Outrages committed against him.
1720. Waterland, Answ. Whitby’s Reply, § 14. You resolve, notwithstanding, to proceed in your own way, and to make a show of saying something, though you find yourself already foreclosed, and every objection obviated.
1732. Berkeley, Serm. Soc. Prop. Gosp., Wks. III. 245. Bringing with them light and comfort, into a mind not hardened by impenitency, nor foreclosed by pride, nor biassed by prejudice.
1796. Coleridge, Ode Departing Year, i.
| Starting from my silent sadness | |
| Then with no unholy madness | |
| Ere yet the enter’d cloud foreclosed my sight, | |
| I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. |
b. To debar from the enjoyment of.
1865. Nichols, Britton, II. 31. If he wrongfully refuses it three times by the testimony of good people, then we will that the lords be foreclosed of such homage.
1876. Lowell, Poet. Wks. (1879), 470.
| Or are we, then, arrived too late, | |
| Doomed with the rest to grope disconsolate, | |
| Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern date? |
c. To preclude or prevent (an action or event).
1546. in St. Papers Hen. VIII. (1852), XI. v. 121. Consydre, in cace your pleasure be tagre to an abstinence, wheder forclosing of victailling shalbe expedyent for Your Majesties affayres.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, VI. 17.
| Nor hope discovery to foreclose, | |
| By giving me to feed the crows. |
4. Law of Mortgage. To bar or exclude (the person entitled to redeem) upon non-payment of money due; to deprive of the equity of redemption. Const. from; also with double obj.
1728. Vernon, Rep., II. 235. The first Mortgagee brought a Bill against the second, to compel him to redeem or to be foreclosed, and foreclosed him accordingly.
1734. Act Geo. II., c. 20 § 1. Mortgagees frequently … commence Suits in his Majesty’s Courts of Equity, to foreclose their Mortgagors from redeeming their Estates.
1844. Williams, Real Prop. (1877), 428. In default thereof he may be foreclosed his equity of redemption.
b. To bar (a right of redemption); to take away the power of redeeming a mortgage).
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4057/4. The Equity of Redemption is foreclosed on certain Mortgages.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav. (1849), 390. Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage.
5. To close beforehand; to answer or settle by anticipation.
1722. De Foe, Moll Flanders (1840), 80. Though I had jested with him (as he supposed it) so often about my poverty, yet when he found it to be true, he had foreclosed all manner of objection.
1849. Tait’s Mag., XVI. June, 399/2. Warburton has confessed that Charles was a despot, and has thereby foreclosed his case.
1865. Grote, Plato, I. vi. 253–4. There are, however, generally a few exceptional minds to whom this omnipotent authority of King Nomos is repugnant, and who claim a right to investigate and judge for themselves on many points already settled and foreclosed by the prevalent orthodoxy.
6. To establish an exclusive claim to.
1599. Daniel, Musophilus, cxxxi.
| Discov’ring daily more and more about, | |
| In that immense and boundless Ocean | |
| Of Nature’s Riches, never yet found out, | |
| Nor fore-clos’d with the Wit of any Man. |
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., I. xi. 228. Instead of being foreclosed and immovable, it [church property] is in fact the only species of landed property that is essentially moving and circulative.
1838. Emerson, Addr., Cambridge (Mass.), Wks. (Bohn), II. 195. And finding not names and places, not land and professions, but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized.
Hence Foreclosed ppl. a.; Foreclosing vbl. sb.
1594. Carew, Tasso (1881), 23.
| The pits to fil, the cragges away to take, | |
| And passages forclosde wide ope to make. |
1598. Sir T. Norreys, in Lismore Papers, Ser. II. (1887), I. 15. The Tenants to haue the forclosinge of there owen Tythes gevynge as much as any others will doe.
1883. J. E. Panton, Pictures of Rural Life, in Good Words, XXIV. 240/1. The family who, fifty years ago, went away into silence, defeated by circumstances and a fore-closed mortgage, and left the lovely house to the owls and bats.
1895. Daily News, 6 June, 5/4. There are 149 of such foreclosed estates to come under the hammer.
