Sequester

v. t. [imp. & p. p. SEQUESTERED; p. pr. & vb. n. SEQUESTERING.] [Fr. séquestrer, Pr., Sp., & Pg. sequestrar, It. sequestrare, Lat. sequestrare, to give up for safe keeping, from Lat. sequester, a depositary, trustee, into whose hands the thing contested was placed until the dispute was settled.]

1Sense 1. (Law.) To separate from the owner for a time; to take from parties in controversy and put into the possession of an indifferent person; to seize or take possession of, as property belonging to another, and hold it till the profits have paid the demand for which it is taken, or till he has performed the decree of court, or clears himself of contempt.

Formerly the goods of a defendant in chancery were, in the last resort, sequestered and detained to enforce the decrees of the court. And now the profits of a benefice are sequestered to pay the debts of ecclesiastics. Blackstone.

2Sense 2. To take from or set aside from, as parties in controversy, and put into the possession of an indifferent person.

3Sense 3. To set apart; to put aside; to remove; to separate from other things.

I had wholly sequestered my civil affairs. Bacon.

4Sense 4. To cause to retire or withdraw into obscurity; to seclude; to send into retiracy. [Obs.]

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

To sequester one's self, to separate one's self from society; to withdraw or retire; to seclude one's self for the sake of privacy or solitude; as, to sequester one's self from action.

v. i. 1. To withdraw; to be apart. [Obs.] “To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and European politics.” Milton. 2. (Law.) To renounce, as a widow, any concern with the estate of her husband.

n. 1. The act of sequestering; sequestration; separation. [Obs.] 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 mediator; an umpire or referee. Bouvier.