CIVIL DEATH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Civil death

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/sˈɪvəl dɛθ/ Listen

Civil death

noun

The legal status of a person who is alive but who has been deprived of the rights and privileges of a citizen or a member of society; the legal status of one sentenced to life imprisonment.

Cancellation of civil rights. Synonym: attainder.

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"Civil death" Quotes from Famous Books

... civil death in which the bankrupt remains a chrysalis lasts for about three months,—a period required by formalities which precede a conference at which the creditors and their debtor sign a treaty of peace, by which the bankrupt is allowed the ability to make payments, and receives a bankrupt's certificate. ...

— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... a man who had as many children as he wanted could cede his wife, temporarily or finally, to another.[1248] These laws seem to have been forgotten. If they ever really existed they did not control early Roman society. By the later law a sentence for crime which produced civil death set free the other spouse. In the last century B.C. divorce became very easy and customary. The mores gradually relaxed to allow it. Augustus compelled the husband of Livia to divorce her because he wanted her himself. She was about to become a mother.[1249] Cato the younger gave his wife ...

— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... from necessities; may thy goodness Meet many favours, and thine innocence Deserve to be the heir of greater fortunes, Than thou wer't born to. Scorn me not Violante, This banishment is a kind of civil death, And now, as it were at his funeral To shed a tear or two, is not unmanly, And so farewel for ever: one word more, Though I must never see thee (my Ascanio) When this is spent (for so the Judge decreed) Send to me for supply: are ...

— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... they are examined first, and any that are found too defective are canceled by stamping a hole in them. These canceled notes pass from one official to another, and are grouped in classified bundles; the book that records the birth of each note now receives a notification of its civil death, and after three years incarceration in a great oak chest, a grand conflagration takes place. A huge fire is kindled in an open court; the defunct notes are thrown into a sort of revolving wire-cage over the fire; ...

— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various