duress

UK/djʊˈɹɛs/US/duˈɹɛs/

nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,806 of 15,258neutral

Duress is force or threats used to make somebody act. Signed under duress, a confession under duress, act under duress.

It is a legal term with real force: a contract signed under duress can be set aside, and a confession obtained that way is inadmissible. The word comes from the Latin for hardness, and it once meant harsh imprisonment.

Definitions of duress

1nounduressForce or threats used to make somebody act.C1
“He claimed he had confessed under duress after police threatened his family.”

duress is a compulsion.

Where it comes from

Old French duresse comes from Latin duritia, hardness, from durus, hard. Endure and durable are relatives.

Latin
dūritia — hardness
Old French
duresse
Middle English
duresse
English, today
duress

Built from

dūrus · Latin — hard

Middle English duresse, from Old French duresse, from Latin dūritia (“hardness”), from dūrus (“hard”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

duress in the wild

The notion of duress must be distinguished from undue influence in civil law.
Duress in American law
In criminal law, duress and necessity are different defenses.
Duress in American law
For example, in many jurisdictions where a person signs a contract under duress, that contract is treated as being void ab initio.
Void (law)
On 20 June 1959, he stated that the agreement was between two independent and sovereign States, and the consent of the government was secured under duress.
Seventeen Point Agreement
Per minas has been used as a defence of duress to certain crimes, as affecting the element of mens rea.
Per minas

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the dūrus family

duress dour

duress — used about once every 2,903 pages · #7,806 · point at the bar for the others

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