reprieve: [16] Reprieve originally meant ‘send back to prison’ (‘Of this treason he was found guilty, and reprieved in the Tower a long time’, Edmund Campion, History of Ireland 1571), but since this was often the alternative to execution, the word soon came to mean ‘suspend a death sentence’. The form in which it originally occurs, at the end of the 15th century, is repry, and it is not clear where the v came from. Repry was borrowed from repris, the past participle of Old French reprendre ‘take back’.
This in turn went back to Latin reprehendere (source of English reprehensible [14]), a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and prehendere ‘seize, take’ (source of English prison, prize, surprise, etc). The medieval Latin derivative reprehensālia produced English reprisal [15], and the feminine past participle of Old French reprendre was the source of English reprise [14]. => apprehend, prison, prize, reprisal, reprise, surprise
reprieve (v.)
1570s, reprive, "take back to prison," alteration (perhaps by influence of reprove) of Middle English repryen "to remand, detain" (late 15c.), probably from Middle French repris, past participle of reprendre "take back" (see reprise). Meaning "to suspend an impending execution" is recorded from 1590s; this sense evolved because being sent back to prison was the alternative to being executed. Spelling with -ie- is from 1640s, perhaps by analogy of achieve, etc. Related: Reprieved; reprieving.
reprieve (n.)
1590s, from reprieve (v.).
双语例句
1. He was saved from the gallows by a lastminute reprieve.
最后一刻的缓刑令把他从绞架上解救了下来.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. The railway line , due for closure, has been granted a six - month reprieve.
本应停运的铁路线获准多运行6个月.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. The family have won a temporary reprieve from eviction.
这个家庭暂时免于被逐出.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. A man awaiting death by lethal injection has been saved by a last minute reprieve.
一个即将被执行注射死刑的男子在最后一分钟获得缓刑。
来自柯林斯例句
5. It looked as though the college would have to shut, but this week it was given a reprieve.
