Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To cause to be free from danger, imprisonment, or difficulty; save. synonym: save.
  • transitive verb Law To remove (a person or property) from legal custody by force, in violation of the law.
  • noun An act of rescuing; a deliverance.
  • noun Law The criminal offense of removing a person or property.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of rescuing; deliverance from restraint, violence, danger, or any evil.
  • noun In law, the forcible or illegal taking of a person or thing out of the custody of the law.
  • noun Synonyms Release, liberation, extrication, redemption.
  • To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger, or evil; liberate from actual restraint; remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil: as, to rescue seamen from destruction by shipwreck.
  • In law, to liberate or take by forcible or illegal means from lawful custody: as, to rescue a prisoner from a constable.
  • To go to the rescue.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of rescuing; deliverance from restraint, violence, or danger; liberation.
  • noun The forcible retaking, or taking away, against law, of things lawfully distrained.
  • noun The forcible liberation of a person from an arrest or imprisonment.
  • noun The retaking by a party captured of a prize made by the enemy.
  • noun (Bot.) A tall grass (Ceratochloa unioloides) somewhat resembling chess, cultivated for hay and forage in the Southern States.
  • transitive verb To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger, or evil; to liberate from actual restraint; to remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To save from any violence, danger or evil.
  • verb To free or liberate from confinement or other physical restraint.
  • verb To recover forcibly
  • verb To deliver by arms, notably from a siege
  • verb figuratively To remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil and sin.
  • noun An act or episode of rescuing, saving.
  • noun A liberation, freeing.
  • noun The forcible ending of a siege; liberation from similar military peril
  • noun A special airliner flight to bring home passengers who are stranded
  • noun A rescuee.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb free from harm or evil
  • verb take forcibly from legal custody
  • noun recovery or preservation from loss or danger

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English rescouen, from Old French rescourre : re-, re- + escourre, to shake (from Latin excutere : ex-, ex- + quatere, to shake; see kwēt- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English rescopuen, from Old French rescourre, rescurre, rescorre; from Latin prefix re- ("re-") + excutere ("to shake or drive out"), from ex ("out") + quatere ("to shake").

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