reprieve

¹re·prieve

verb \ri-ˈprēv\

re·prievedre·priev·ing

Definition of REPRIEVE

transitive verb

1

: to delay the punishment of (as a condemned prisoner)

2

: to give relief or deliverance to for a time

Examples of REPRIEVE

1. He was sentenced to death but then reprieved.
2. The library has been reprieved and will remain open for at least another year.
3. And many murderers have been reprieved because they were condemned for the wrong murder, quite probably just as many as have been executed for the only murder they did not in fact commit. —Christopher Hitchens, Nation, 14 May 2001
4. In a postscript to the very same letter, he added, ‘If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday.’ If there had been any doubt of his fate, this weakness and meanness would have settled it. The very next day, which was the twelfth of May, he was brought out to be beheaded on Tower Hill. —Charles Dickens, A Child's History of England, 1854

Origin of REPRIEVE

probably blend of obsolete repreve to reprove (from Middle English) and obsolete repry to remand, postpone, from Anglo-French repri-, past stem of reprendre to take back

First Known Use: 1596

Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism

Rhymes with REPRIEVE

Abib, achieve, aggrieve, believe, bereave, cap sleeve, conceive, deceive, French leave, frost heave, Hoccleve, inweave, khedive, motive, naive, perceive, pet peeve, plain weave, qui vive, receive, relieve, retrieve, shirtsleeve, shore leave, sick leave, unreeve, unweave, upheave