sequester
/sɪˈkwɛstə
/verb [with object]
1Isolate or hide away: she is sequestered in deepest Dorset the artist sequestered himself in his studio for two years...
- In fact, practically every story written on her lately has breathlessly played up how she sequestered herself in a cabin in the woods near Ottawa in the months leading up to making the album.
- He then sequestered himself in a cave for nine years and sat gazing at the wall.
- So they actually bought their own small roulette wheel, sequestered themselves in their rooms at the Pension Russe, spent hours practicing, and returned to play day after day.
Synonyms
isolate oneself, hide oneself away, shut oneself away, seclude oneself, cut/shut oneself off, set oneself apart, segregate oneself;
closet oneself, withdraw oneself, remove oneself, retire
2 another term for sequestrate. their property was sequestered by Parliament...
- After the war in 1944 German property in Belgium was sequestered, and the shares in the subsidiary sold.
- That runs counter to the finding of the judge that he has realisable assets in a certain amount in excess of those sums which have been sequestered.
- Hence, several farms have not been able to sell their milk, which was sequestered by the local health authorities and destroyed.
Synonyms
confiscate, seize, sequestrate, take possession of, take, appropriate, expropriate, impound, commandeer, arrogate;
Law distrain, attach, disseize;
Scottish Law poind
3 Chemistry Form a chelate or other stable compound with (an ion, atom, or molecule) so that it is no longer available for reactions: non-precipitating water softeners use complex phosphates to sequester calcium and magnesium ions (as adjective sequestering) the organic sequestering agent EDTA...
- Such reversible, switchable metal-ion binding activity will lead to systems that can sequester metal ions while in the avid form and to systems that can exchange metal ions rapidly while in the other.
- We observed subunit dissociation directly in excess vitamin D binding protein to sequester monomers and preclude association reactions.
- One of the interesting properties of melanins is their ability to sequester metal ions.
noun US
A general cut in government spending: if the budget deal hadn’t gone through, there would have been a sequester of at least $100 billion...
- But if the Senate doesn't move we might just have a sequester.
- Congress and the president were supposed to figure out how to cut the deficits or else they'd have a sequester, forced spending cuts.
- "But even if a sequester is avoided, the likely policies required to address the nation's long-term fiscal debt problems may also reduce the level of federal funds for states."
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French sequestrer or late Latin sequestrare 'commit for safekeeping', from Latin sequester 'trustee'.