durance

From Old French durance, from durer (“to last”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒʊəɹəns/, /ˈdjʊəɹəns/

durance (countable and uncountable, plural durances)

1. (obsolete) Duration.
2. (obsolete) Endurance.
   • 1885–1887, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “[Poem 41]”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 63:

     O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap / May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small / Durance deal with that steep or deep.

3. (archaic) Imprisonment; forced confinement.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     What bootes it him from death to be unbownd, / To be captived in endlesse duraunce / Of sorrow and despeyre without aleggeaunce!

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 373:

     the parson concurred, saying, the Lord forbid he should be instrumental in committing an innocent person to durance.

• durance vile

• dauncer, unarced, uncared, unraced

durer +‎ -ance.

durance f (oblique plural durances, nominative singular durance, nominative plural durances)

1. duration (length with respect to time)
   • circa 1289, Jacques d'Amiens, L'art d'amours

     Si prent on tost tele acointance

     Qui puet avoir peu de durance