mulct
/mʌlkt/
mulct noun: a fine or penalty, especially a pecuniary one.
Noun
mulct (plural mulcts)
- A fine or penalty, especially a pecuniary one.
- juries cast up what a wife is worth, / By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on / The lover, who must pay a handsome price, / Because it is a marketable vice.1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza LXIV
- […]by the Salic law, no higher mulct was imposed for killing, than for kidnapping a slave.1838, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell, →OCLC, 1st part...
Verb
mulct (third-person singular simple present mulcts, present participle mulcting, simple past and past participle mulcted)
- To impose such a fine or penalty.
- None of their numerous quarrels with Rome from 437 (?) B.C. onwards (Liv. 4. 17) led to any decisive result until their rebellion in the year 341 B.C., when the city, despite its strong position on a hill with steep sides, was taken (e.g. Polyb. 1. 65) and mulcted of half its territory.1897, Robert Seymour Conway, The Italic Dialects, Cambridge University Press, page 370
- I say that I have seen the current issue of the Thursday Review, and I can quite understand him wanting to mulct the journal in substantial damages […]1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
- To swindle (someone) out of money.
- Mr. Train's most celebrated real life case was said to have been the prosecution in 1914 of Henry Siegel, operator of a chain of dry-goods stores, who was accused of mulcting thousands in a savings account scheme.1945 December 23, “Arthur Train Dead; Created Mr. Tutt”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- However, the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public who have been mulcted or in other ways abused by members of the occupation.1962, Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, page 140
mulct meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
mulct in Tamil
- அபராதம், தண்டனை, அபராதம் விதி, ஏமாற்றிப் பெறு, மோசடி செய், வஞ்சி
mulct in Urdu
- بھتہ, ڈنڈ, جرمانہ
mulct in Malayalam
- കുറ്റം ചെയ്തതിന് ചുമത്തിയ പിഴ, ശിക്ഷ
Forms of mulct
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | mulcts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | mulcts |
| present participle | mulcting |
| past participle | mulcted |
| past | mulcted |
Origin of mulct
From Middle French mulcter (“to fine, punish”), from Latin mulcta (“penalty, fine”). Possibly a doublet of milk.
Words formed from mulct
Words that rhyme with mulct
Questions about mulct
- What does mulct mean?
- Mulct means a fine or penalty, especially a pecuniary one.
- What is mulct in Tamil?
- Mulct in Tamil is அபராதம், தண்டனை, அபராதம் விதி. See Mulct meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is mulct?
- Mulct can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce mulct?
- Mulct is pronounced /mʌlkt/.
- What is the plural of mulct?
- The plural of mulct is mulcts.
Words near mulct in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mulct (page history and authors); mulct (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mulct (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mulct (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mulct.wav.
Cite this entry: “mulct.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mulct. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.