CONFISCATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does confiscate mean? 

• CONFISCATE (adjective)
  The adjective CONFISCATE has 1 sense:

1. surrendered as a penalty

  Familiarity information: CONFISCATE used as an adjective is very rare.

• CONFISCATE (verb)
  The verb CONFISCATE has 1 sense:

1. take temporary possession of as a security, by legal authority

  Familiarity information: CONFISCATE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONFISCATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Surrendered as a penalty

Synonyms:

confiscate; forfeit; forfeited

Similar:

lost (not gained or won)

• CONFISCATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they confiscate    ... he / she / it confiscates   
Past simple: confiscated   
Past participle: confiscated   
-ing form: confiscating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Take temporary possession of as a security, by legal authority

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

attach; confiscate; impound; seize; sequester

Context example:

The police confiscated the stolen artwork

Hypernyms (to "confiscate" is one way to...):

take (take into one's possession)

Verb group:

sequester (requisition forcibly, as of enemy property)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "confiscate"):

condemn (appropriate (property) for public use)

garnish; garnishee (take a debtor's wages on legal orders, such as for child support)

distrain (confiscate by distress)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

confiscation (seizure by the government)

 Context examples 

His estates were confiscated, and I was left with a pittance and a broken heart.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Whereat Mr. Bhaer confiscated her purse, produced his own, and finished the marketing by buying several pounds of grapes, a pot of rosy daisies, and a pretty jar of honey, to be regarded in the light of a demijohn.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The afforestation of the district, however, and its conversion into a royal demesne had clipped off a large section of his estate, while other parts had been confiscated as a punishment for his supposed complicity in an abortive Saxon rising.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This much-enduring man had succeeded in banishing chewing gum after a long and stormy war, had made a bonfire of the confiscated novels and newspapers, had suppressed a private post office, had forbidden distortions of the face, nicknames, and caricatures, and done all that one man could do to keep half a hundred rebellious girls in order.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)