Disarrest

/ˌdɪsəˈrɛst/ verb

Definition

To release or free someone from arrest; to free from restraint or confinement.

Etymology

From dis- (meaning to reverse or undo) + arrest (from Old French arester, meaning to stop or detain). This is a rare legal or archaic term meaning to undo an arrest.

Kelly Says

This word is almost extinct in modern English because we use 'release' instead, but legal documents from the 1700s-1800s used 'disarrest' as the formal opposite of 'arrest,' showing how vocabulary changes over centuries.

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