confiscate
verb/ˈkɒnfɪskeɪt/
/ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪt/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they confiscate | /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪt/ /ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪt/ |
| he / she / it confiscates | /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪts/ /ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪts/ |
| past simple confiscated | /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪtɪd/ /ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪtɪd/ |
| past participle confiscated | /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪtɪd/ /ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪtɪd/ |
| -ing form confiscating | /ˈkɒnfɪskeɪtɪŋ/ /ˈkɑːnfɪskeɪtɪŋ/ |
- confiscate something to officially take something away from somebody, especially as a punishment
- Their land was confiscated after the war.
- The teacher threatened to confiscate their phones if they kept using them in class.
- Our belongings were temporarily confiscated.
Oxford Collocations DictionaryConfiscate is used with these nouns as the object:- passport
- property
Word Originmid 16th cent.: from Latin confiscat- ‘put away in a chest, consigned to the public treasury’, from the verb confiscare, based on con- ‘together’ + fiscus ‘chest, treasury’.Definitions on the go
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confiscate