disseise

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The Word of the Day for April 14 is:

disseise   \dih-SEEZ\   verb 
     : to deprive especially wrongfully of seisin : dispossess 

Example sentence: 
     Landlords in New York beware: The law provides that "if a 
person is disseised, ejected, or put out of real property in a 
forcible or unlawful manner ... he is entitled to treble 
damages." (McKinney's Real Property Actions and Proceedings 
Law, Section 853)

Did you know?
     "Disseise," "seisin" ("the possession of land"), 
and "seize" are all 14th-century words derived from the Anglo-
French word "seisir," meaning "to put in possession of." That's 
the original meaning of English "seize" as well. ("Seize" can 
also be spelled "seise" in that sense.) By the 16th 
century, "seize" had also come to mean "to put (oneself) in 
possession of" (as in "the king seized himself of the crown"), 
which ultimately led to the more general meaning "to take by 
force." The Magna Carta (the great charter of liberties, 
originally written in Medieval Latin) is perhaps the most 
frequently quoted use of the word "disseise": "No freeman shall 
be ... disseised ... except by the lawful judgment of his peers 
or by the law of the land."