(v. t.) To fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold of; to gripe or grasp suddenly; to reach and grasp.
(v. t.) To take possession of by force.
(v. t.) To invade suddenly; to take sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient.
(v. t.) To take possession of by virtue of a warrant or other legal authority; as, the sheriff seized the debtor's goods.
(v. t.) To fasten; to fix.
(v. t.) To grap with the mind; to comprehend fully and distinctly; as, to seize an idea.
(v. t.) To bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff, as yarn or marline; as, to seize ropes.
Example Sentences:
(1) Batson believes there is a “mood” that needs to be seized upon.
(2) George Osborne said the 146,000 fall in joblessness marked "another step on the road to full employment" but Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) seized on news that earnings were failing to keep pace with prices.
(3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
(4) Among the dead were two young young officers, Major Mujahid Ali and Captain Usman, whose life stories the media seized upon, helped by the military's public relations machine.
(5) Remember, if he did seize group power and dispose of the Independent , he'd still be boss of the rest of INM: 200 or so papers and magazines around the world, dominant voices in Australasia, South Africa, India and Ireland itself, 100 million readers a week.
(6) Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.
(7) Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State.
(8) The coroner also raised concerns that although the aim of the operation in which Duggan was killed was to take guns off the streets, little attempt was made to seize weapons believed to be held by Hutchinson-Foster.
(9) Employers seize the workers’ passports and the only body that can issue a permit for a worker to leave Qatar is the employer himself.
(10) Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover-up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.
(11) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
(12) A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Isis fighters had massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing Kocho.
(13) "This is a formidable challenge, requiring step changes in the rate at which we improve our energy efficiency and in low-carbon innovation.The Carbon Trust's proposals recognise the need for us to be smarter in focusing our investments, including to help businesses seize the economic opportunities of the transition."
(14) The US and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when a group of student protesters seized the US embassy in Tehran and took US officials hostage.
(15) The militants have also seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, and have declared a self-styled caliphate in the territory they control.
(16) But the Tories edited out a crucial final sentence in which Balls told BBC Radio Leeds on 9 January : “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.” Labour seized on the Tory editing of the Balls interview to accuse the Tories of misleading people to defend their refusal to tackle tax avoidance.
(17) The Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had given pro-Russian locals in eastern Ukraine until Monday morning to give up their arms and the buildings they had seized, but instead a pro-Russian mob took over yet another government building in Horlivka that day.
(18) The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.
(19) In 2014, they seized on Osborne’s declaration of a “northern powerhouse” to promote One North, a plan for a £15bn network, dubbed HS3, between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
(20) The president’s supporters seized on the incident to plant seeds of confusion and false equivalency: if that Russia story was wrong, perhaps all of them are wrong?
Usurp
Definition:
(v. t.) To seize, and hold in possession, by force, or without right; as, to usurp a throne; to usurp the prerogatives of the crown; to usurp power; to usurp the right of a patron is to oust or dispossess him.
(v. i.) To commit forcible seizure of place, power, functions, or the like, without right; to commit unjust encroachments; to be, or act as, a usurper.
Example Sentences:
(1) If I invoked the Insurrection Act against her wishes, the world would see a male Republican president usurping the authority of a female Democratic governor by declaring an insurrection in a largely African American city.
(2) The ease of movement this afforded him allowed him to usurp three ports – at Ras Lanuf, Zeitina and Sidra – and remain in control.
(3) Balfe's role has now been usurped by key ministers – including Francis Maude and Oliver Letwin in the Cabinet Office, and Danny Alexander in the Treasury – and finishes after the Conservative party conference next month, when he will deliver a memo to Cameron on his recommendations for the future.
(4) The previous indication of limb-threatening ischemia has been usurped by distal arterial reconstruction.
(5) Rejecting suggestions that he had been usurped by Clegg as the candidate for change, he said it was his party that wanted to elect police commissioners, create active citizens and tackle poverty at source.
(6) In a country where gender inequality is entrenched, this is how easy it is for a well-known man to usurp the role of victim.
(7) Are Panathinaikos going to jump out and usurp one of these teams' place in the final?
(8) While many employees feel disillusioned and “oppressed” as they feel their jobs and responsibilities are being usurped by Charles’ aides, she claims.
(9) An estimated £810m was spent online by British shoppers on Friday, according to internet retail experts IMRG, a figure that eclipsed the £650m splurge predicted for Cyber Monday, and potentially means Boxing Day has been usurped as the biggest shopping day of the year once store sales are taken into account.
(10) David Cameron has accused him of cowardice, his mandarins are being accused of bias and UK ministers are trying to usurp his role as Scotland's most influential ambassador.
(11) Dave Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribal council, called the executive order “a menacing action meant to cause fear” and “a blatant attempt by the state and local officials to usurp and circumvent federal authority”.
(12) Finally, the need for psychiatric expert witnesses has increased because courts have gradually usurped some psychiatric clinical prerogatives and because there has been a trend toward greater consideration of emotional pain and suffering.
(13) Those who claim that conversion or rejection of faith is punishable by death are effectively - and this ought to give their pious hearts pause for reflection - usurping powers reserved solely for God.
(14) Also teams who win the Champions League or Europa League but finish outside the qualifying places in their domestic campaign will no longer usurp one of their league rivals to take up their place the following season.
(15) This dysphonia can occur as a compensation for anatomic or physiologic alterations within the larynx (vicarious type) or as isolated ventricular fold hypertrophy unaccompanied by other obvious laryngeal disorders (usurpative type).
(16) The Labour party hopes to change this next year: if all goes according to plan, local lass Lee Sherriff will usurp John Stevenson, the Tory who – to his own obvious surprise – managed to interrupt 45 years of unbroken red rule in Carlisle by getting elected in 2010.
(17) More than this, he has one incontrovertible advantage over anyone who might think about usurping him: he is a Kim.
(18) Oh God, deal with the usurpers and oppressors and tyrannical Jews.
(19) Everyone knows that there are two Milibands, and Westminster obsessives have long lipped their lips at the Oedipal prospect of Ed the younger usurping David the elder.
(20) Just as the house of Lancaster was toppled by the house of York, so, at the beginning of Game of Thrones, has the ruling dynasty of the Targaryens been toppled by a usurper, Robert Baratheon.