The Word of the Day for February 7 is:
amerce • \uh-MERSS\ • (verb)
: to punish by a fine whose amount is fixed by the court; broadly : punish
Example sentence:
Joe was dismayed to learn that for his second violation, the judge would
be
amercing him in the vast sum of $600.
Did you know?
If you break the law, you could find yourself "at the mercy" of the court.
As
you await your punishment (hoping that the judge will in fact be merciful),
you
may want to ponder the history of "amerce." It begins with the Old French
phrase "a merci," meaning "at (one's) mercy," which in turn gave rise to
the
Anglo-French verb "amercier" (same meaning as "amerce"). Middle English
speakers adopted the French word as "amercien," which was later
modernized to "amerce." In addition to the legal use, "amerce" can also
be
used in a more general sense for the infliction of any sort of punishment,
monetary or otherwise.
fri2003