Definition of "durance"
durance
noun
countable and uncountable, plural durances
(archaic) Imprisonment; forced confinement.
Quotations
(obsolete) Duration.
(obsolete) Endurance, durability.
Quotations
Fal. Thou ſay'ſt true Lad: is not my Hoſteſſe of the Tauerne a moſt ſweet Wench? / Prin. As is the hony, my old Lad of the Caſtle: and is not a Buffe Ierkin a moſt ſweet robe of durance?
c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii], page 49, column 2
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap / May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small / Durance deal with that steep or deep.
1885–1887, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “[Poem 41]”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, stanza 2, page 63