sequester

From Old French sequestrer [1], from Late Latin sequestrō (“separate, give up for safekeeping”), from Latin sequester (“mediator, depositary”), probably originally meaning "follower", from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“follow”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sɪˈkwɛs.tə/, /səˈkwɛs.tə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sɪˈkwɛs.tɚ/, /səˈkwɛs.tɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛstə(ɹ)

sequester (third-person singular simple present sequesters, present participle sequestering, simple past and past participle sequestered)

1. To separate from all external influence; to seclude; to withdraw.

   The jury was sequestered from the press by the judge's order.

   • Hooker

     when men most sequester themselves from action

2. To separate in order to store.

   The coal burning plant was ordered to sequester its CO₂ emissions.

3. To set apart; to put aside; to remove; to separate from other things.
   • Francis Bacon

     I had wholly sequestered my civil affairss.

4. (chemistry) To prevent an ion in solution from behaving normally by forming a coordination compound
5. (law) To temporarily remove (property) from the possession of its owner and hold it as security against legal claims.
6. To cause (one) to submit to the process of sequestration; to deprive (one) of one's estate, property, etc.
   • South

     It was his tailor and his cook, his fine fashions and his French ragouts, which sequestered him.

7. (transitive, US, politics, law) To remove (certain funds) automatically from a budget.

   The Budget Control Act of 2011 sequestered 1.2 trillion dollars over 10 years on January 2, 2013.

8. (international law) To seize and hold enemy property.
9. (intransitive) To withdraw; to retire.
   • Milton

     to sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian politics

10. To renounce (as a widow may) any concern with the estate of her husband.

• segregate

• sequestrable adjective
• sequestered adjective
• sequestrate verb
• sequestration noun
• sequestrator noun

sequester (plural sequesters)

1. sequestration; separation

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

2. (law) A person with whom two or more contending parties deposit the subject matter of the controversy; one who mediates between two parties; a referee.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bouvier to this entry?)

3. (medicine) A sequestrum.

• sequestre