Word.ws English Dictionary

deodands

deodands is the plural of deodand.

Meaning of deodand

Noun

deodand (plural deodands)

  1. (historical) An object forfeited to the state (and supposedly to God) because it had caused the death of a person.
    • Really, it’s hard not to wonder whether some current civil forfeiture practices represent much less than a revival of the archaic common-law deodand.2024 May 9, Neil Gorsuch, “CULLEY ET AL. v. MARSHALL, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF ALABAMA, ET AL.”, in Opinions, Supreme Court of the United States
  2. (historical) A fine equal to the value of this object, paid by the owner of the object.
    • pay the deodand

Questions about deodands

What is deodands the plural of?
Deodands is the plural of deodand.

Words near deodands in the dictionary

  1. deoculate
  2. deoculated
  3. deoculates
  4. deoculating
  5. deodand
  6. deodands
  7. deodar
  8. deodar cedar
  9. deodar cedars
  10. deodara
  11. deodaras

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deodands (page history and authors); deodand (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “deodands.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deodands. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.