sequestration

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sequestracioun, also sequestracoun,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French sequestracion^[2][3][4] and directly borrowed from Late Latin sequestrātiō (“a depositing, a sequestering”).^[5][3][6][7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1352, meaning the confiscation of goods or revenue.^[8] The Late Latin noun is formed from sequestrātus, the past participle of sequestrō (“to place in safekeeping; to remove, separate”),^[6][7][9][3] from sequester (“depositary, trustee, mediator”), the person into whose hands a disputed thing was placed until the dispute was settled.^[3][10] Etymonline takes sequester as probably related to sequor (“to follow”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow”),^[3][10] while the OED derives it from a form meaning "a position apart", the source of secus (“otherwise”).^[5] The OED compares Spanish secuestracion, Portuguese sequestração and Italian sequestrazione.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Separation or exclusion, and banishment, especially a cutting off from the privileges of church membership: c. 1425, in the Apology for Lollard Doctrines, which speaks of a curse that is a sequestracoun of þe iust man fro comyn.^[5][2] Etymonline dates the word to about 1400.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was also used for putting a matter aside or deferring it, for the lawful impounding of church goods, and in surgery for an eruption around a boil.^[2] From the 1560s it meant the state of being sequestered, seclusion or retirement,^[5][3] and it gathered a range of legal senses: the diversion of a property's income to satisfy claims against its owner (1565), the seizure of a subject's possessions by the state (1568), the securing of a dead person's goods when the executors renounced probate (1591), and in Scots law the placing of a bankrupt's estate under a trustee (1765).^[5] Johnson (1755) gave four senses: separation or retirement, disjunction, the state of being set aside, and deprivation of the use and profits of a possession, quoting Shakespeare for the first and third.^[11] The sense of excommunication is now rare.^[4][5] In 1948 chemists adopted the word for the removal of ions from a solution by binding them into complexes.^[5][12]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – separation, exclusion; banishment, especially excommunication.^[5][2]
• before 1450 – probably the lawful impounding of church goods.^[2]
• c. 1475 – put in sequestration, to lay a matter aside, defer it.^[2]
• 1565 – the state of being sequestered, seclusion; the diversion of a property's income to satisfy claims against its owner.^[5]
• 1567 – separation, disjunction.^[5]
• 1568 – the seizure of a subject's possessions by the state.^[5]
• 1640 – seizure, confiscation.^[5]
• 1765 – in Scots law, placing a bankrupt's estate under the control of a trustee.^[5]
• 1948 – in chemistry, the removal of ions by forming complexes.^[5][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of sequestering, or the state of being sequestered; isolation, seclusion: The trial lasted so long that the jury's sequestration cost the county a fortune.^[7][13][12]
2. (law) The removal of property from the person holding it, by order of a court, until a dispute over it is settled or a claim is met.^{[7][14][12][5]}
3. Seizure or confiscation of property by a state.^[5][7]
4. (Scots law) The taking of a bankrupt's property to divide it among the creditors.^[7][5]
5. (ecclesiastical) The taking over of the income of a vacant benefice.^[7][5]
6. (chemistry) The removal of ions from a solution by binding them into complexes that do not behave like the original ions.^[12][5]
7. (ecclesiastical, rare) Excommunication.^[4][5]

Word family

• nonsequestration

Related words

• sequester
• sequestrate
• sequestrant

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West