Word Finder - extorted

definition

To take or seize off an unwilling person by physical force, menace, duress, torture, or any undue or illegal exercise of power or ingenuity

example

to extort a promise

definition

To obtain by means of the offense of extortion.

definition

To twist outwards.

It was one of the five Wendish towns whose alliance extorted from King Eric of Norway a favourable commercial treaty in 1284-1285; and in the 14th century it was second only to Lubeck in the Hanseatic League.

For this display of independence he was imprisoned at Reims, and not released till some three years later, when Napoleon had extorted terms from the captive pope at Fontainebleau.

Scarcely had he returned to Germany when the Lateran disavowed all that the pope had done, on the score that it had been extorted by force.

It had been extorted from the king by force (per vim et metum), and in the words of the bull the pope said "compositionem hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et damnamus."

Money must not be extorted from a ward when he receives his inheritance.

The Janissaries slaughtered all the `' new troops " whom they met, and finally extorted an amnesty from the terrified government.

Having extorted a large sum of money from the burghers of Nuremberg, he quarrelled with his supporter, the French king, and offered his services to the emperor.

This Bohun lives in history as one of the recalcitrant barons of the year 1297, who extorted from Edward I.

Occasionally acts of chastisement, of which the bombardment of Porto Farina by Blake in 1655 was the most notable, and repeated treaties, extorted by European powers, checked from time to time, but did not put an end to, the habitual piracies, on which indeed the public revenue of Tunis was mainly dependent.

But he now resisted pain better, and, although more than once a promise to recant was extorted from him, he reasserted his innocence when unbound, crying out, "My God, I denied Thee for fear of pain."

The English colonies, though divided by interest or character, were all alike jealous to defend, and eager to extend, their freedom of self-government, based on charters granted by, or extorted from, the crown.

In 1552, suddenly marching against Charles at Innsbruck, he drove him to flight and then extorted from him the religious peace of Passau.

And it is instructive to observe that when the plebeians extorted their full share of political power they also demanded and obtained admission to every priestly college of political importance, to those, namely, of the pontiffs, the augurs, and the XV viri sacrorum.

In January 1567 Eric extorted a declaration from two of his senators that they would assist him to punish all who should try to prevent his projected marriage; and, in the middle of May, a Riksdag was summoned to Upsala to judge between the king and those of the aristocracy whom he regarded as his personal enemies.

On one occasion (July 1839) French officers abrogated the laws (particularly against the importation of liquor), dictated treaties, extorted $20,000 and by force of arms procured privileges for Roman Catholic 1 priests in the country; and at another time (February 1843) a British officer, Captain Paulet of the " Carysfort," went so far as to take possession of Oahu and establish a commission for its government.

Profiting by the feebleness of Matthias' successor Vladislav, they extorted concessions which secured to them a practical autonomy.

In the following year Frederick renewed his attack and extorted from Austria the whole of Silesia except the districts of Troppau, Teschen and Jagerndorf, the present province of Austrian Silesia.

When these were refused, he extorted aids from the towns, the Jews or the clergy, the three most defenceless interests in the kingdom.

Resisting Pitt's attempt to draw him into alliance against the ministry he had quitted, Yorke maintained, in a speech that extorted the highest eulogy from Walpole, that parliamentary privilege did not extend to cases of libel; though he agreed with Pitt in condemning the principle of general warrants.

Three days later, by the compact of Linkoping, Sigismund agreed to submit all the points in dispute between himself and his uncle to a riksdag at Stockholm; but immediately afterwards took ship for Danzig, after secretly protesting to the two papal prothonotaries who accompanied him that the Linkoping agreement had been extorted from him, and was therefore invalid.

When his father's abdication was extorted by a popular riot at Aranjuez in March 1808, he ascended the throne - not to lead his people manfully, but to throw himself into the hands of Napoleon, in the fatuous hope that the emperor would support him.

This was the year of the Petition of Right, extorted from the king in the third parliament he had tried within three years of his accession; and, in view of Hobbes's later activity, it is significant that he came forward just then, at the mature age of forty, with his version of the story of the Athenian democracy as the first production of his pen.

But the funds required for these public works, as well as the actual labor, were remorselessly extorted from a poverty-stricken population.

In 1282 the nobles extorted from King Eric Glipping the first Haandfaestning, or charter, which recognized the Danehof, or national assembly, as a regular branch of the administration and gave guarantees against further usurpations.

At Yazur they were stopped by an official who extorted heavy blackmail on the ground that the sultan had given him charge of the " holy places " and had forbidden him to admit anyone to them without;payment (!).

The latter record, containing the various acts of homage and fealty extorted by Edward from Baliol and others in the course of his progress through Scotland in the summer of 1296 and in August at the parliament of Berwick, was published by Prynne from the copy in the Tower and now in the Record Office.

The Hildebrandine party was aroused to action, however; a Lateran council of March 1112 declared null and void the concessions extorted by violence; a council held at Vienna in October actually excommunicated the emperor, and Paschal sanctioned the proceeding.

It is certain that Sweden herself could never have extorted such favourable terms, yet " the insufferable tutelage " of France on this occasion inspired Charles XI.

There is every ground, then, for concluding that we have here one concession extorted by the assaults of Carneades.

Almeida and Albuquerque had hoped to meet the expense of administration mainly out of the fees extorted for safe-conducts at sea and trading-licences, with the tribute wrung from native states and the revenue from Crown lands in India.

The Rigsraads of Denmark and Norway insisted, in the haandfaestning or charter extorted from the king, that the crowns of both kingdoms were elective and not hereditary, providing explicitly against any transgression of the charter by the king, and expressly reserving to themselves a free choice of Christian's successor after his death.

He regarded the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi which Russia extorted from the Porte in 1832, when she came to the relief of the sultan after the battle of Konieh, with great jealousy; and, when the power of Mehemet Ali in Egypt appeared to threaten the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, he succeeded in effecting a combination of all the powers,who signed the celebrated collective note of the 27th of July 1839, pledging them to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire as a security for the peace of Europe.

One of the special objects of their hatred, the Jews, were also mulcted heavily by Philip, who extorted 150,000 livres from those of Paris alone.

The ceremony, it is suggested, may have been extorted by the jealousy of Stella and have been accompanied by the express condition on Swift's side that the marriage was never to be avowed.

Fearing for his personal safety, the earl gave the required oath, and sailed home a perjured man, for he had assuredly no intention of keeping the promise that had been extorted from him.

In dealing with the baronage Ranulf and his master extorted excessive and arbitrary reliefs whenever land passed in succession to heirs.

Pope Alexander also extorted from the king a pledge that he would relinquish any customs prejudicial to the rights of the Church which had been introduced since his accession.

The king abode for no more than three months in England; he got himself recrowned at Winchester, apparently to wipe out the stain of his German captivity and of an enforced homage which the emperor had extorted from him.

The inevitable oath to observe honestly all the conditions of the Great Charter of 1215 was, as usual, extorted from him with special formalities.

By every unfair means the commissioners extorted the semblance of a popular vote in favour of incorporation, and France annexed the Netherlands.

Thus armed, and provided with gold extorted from his former subjects in Leinster, Dermod went to Bristol and sought the acquaintance of Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, a Norman noble of great ability but broken fortunes.

In answer to popular demands a constitution was granted to Saxe-Altenburg in 1831, and greater concessions were extorted by the more threatening disturbances of 1848.

With Ricci's assistance, he rapidly mastered the elements of the science, and eventually extorted his father's reluctant permission to exchange Hippocrates and Galen for Euclid and Archimedes.

The Lincean Academy collapsed with the death of Prince Federigo Cesi, its founder and president; an outbreak of plague impeded communication between the various Italian cities; and the imprimatur was finally extorted, rather than accorded, under the pressure of private friendship and powerful interest.

But Mozaffar lasted for a short time, and then died, poisoned, as it was said, by his brother Abdurrahman, called Sanchol, the son of Mansur by one of the Christian ladies whom he extorted for his harem from the fears of the Christian princes.

He extorted from the feeble caliph the Abdur- title of successor, thereby deeply offending the rahmaa princes of the Omayyad house and the populace Sanchol.

He overruns extorted tribute, and double and treble tribute Mahoinme-from the princes of Andalusia.

Iii many cases the serfs in the course of their struggle for freedom extorted charters and fueros.

The barons of Aragon and Valencia had extorted from his weak father the charter known Peter IV.

When he won he took indeed a brutal vengeance on individuals, and he extorted the surrender of the charter and destroyed it with his dagger in the presence of the Cortes at Saragossa.