Word.ws English Dictionary

mainprise

mainprise noun: a writ directed to the sheriff, commanding him to take sureties, called mainpernors, for the prisoner's appearance, and to let him go at large.

Noun

mainprise (countable and uncountable, plural mainprises)

  1. (historical) A writ directed to the sheriff, commanding him to take sureties, called mainpernors, for the prisoner's appearance, and to let him go at large.
  2. (historical) Deliverance of a prisoner on security for his appearance at a day.

Verb

mainprise (third-person singular simple present mainprises, present participle mainprising, simple past and past participle mainprised)

  1. (transitive) To allow (a prisoner) to go at large, on his finding sureties, or mainpernors, for his appearance on a given day.

Forms of mainprise

Noun
pluralmainprises
alternative formmainprize
Verb
third-person singular presentmainprises
present participlemainprising
past participlemainprised
pastmainprised

Origin of mainprise

From Middle English meynprise, maynprise, from Anglo-Norman mainprise.

Questions about mainprise

What does mainprise mean?
Mainprise means a writ directed to the sheriff, commanding him to take sureties, called mainpernors, for the prisoner's appearance, and to let him go at large.
What part of speech is mainprise?
Mainprise can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of mainprise?
The plural of mainprise is mainprises.

Words near mainprise in the dictionary

  1. mainplate
  2. mainport
  3. mainports
  4. mainpost
  5. mainposts
  6. mainprise
  7. mainprised
  8. mainprises
  9. mainprising
  10. mainpriv
  11. mainprivs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mainprise (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: “mainprise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mainprise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.