recaption

[ ree-kap-shuhn ]

noun

, Law.

1. the taking back without violence of one's property or a member of one's family or household unlawfully in the possession or custody of another.

recaption

/ riːˈkæpʃən /

noun

1. law the process of taking back one's own wife, child, property, etc, without causing a breach of the peace

Word History and Origins

Origin of recaption¹

First recorded in 1600–10; re- + caption

Word History and Origins

Origin of recaption¹

C17: from re- + caption (in the sense: seizure)

Example Sentences

For example, while Southern enslavers emphasized their summary right of recaption of fugitives, abolitionists emphasized states’ authority to require due process in renditions.

From Washington Post

His defence was that he had a lawful excuse for cutting the padlocks in that wheel-clamping was a trespass to his car, and under the principle of the "recaption of goods" he was entitled to recover his car.

From BBC

The owner must, therefore, have the right to seize and repossess the slave which the local laws of his own State confer upon him as property; and we all know that this right of seizure and recaption is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding States.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus far, Mr. Seward concurs with the chancellor in opinion; but the latter continues—"and any state officer or private citizen, who owes allegiance to the United States, and has taken the usual oath to support the Constitution thereof, cannot, without incurring the moral guilt of perjury, do any act to deprive the master of his right of recaption, when there is no real doubt that the person whose services are claimed is in fact the slave of the claimant."

From Project Gutenberg

Its true the Prepon'ts had a Right or Claim to Salvage On the Recaption, but before that right Cou'd be Adjudged lawfull to the Recaptors the Briganteen was again taken by a Spaniard, which puts an Entire End to Salvage for a former Recaption, because Retakeing and Restitution begets Salvage but the Prepon'ts Retakeing is lost by the Enemies Again takeing the Brig't, and in Fact its the Enemy that made the Restitution.

From Project Gutenberg