Incamerate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To seize or confiscate property, land, or assets on behalf of the state or sovereign authority
2. To take possession of someone's belongings or holdings for the crown or government
3. To appropriate private property into state ownership through official seizure or forfeiture

Etymology: The papal treasury in medieval Rome was called the Camera Apostolica, or simply "camera," meaning "chamber" or "room" in Latin. To "incamerate" something was to take it into that treasury, so a property or fee that reverted to the Church was said to be incameration. The verb came from Medieval Latin "incamerare," and the Italian "incamerare" kept the sense of seizing something for the state's coffers. The English word is rare and mostly limited to legal and historical writing, where it appears in discussions of ecclesiastical property. Despite its resemblance to "incarnate," with its sense of flesh, it has no connection to that word. The shared shape is coincidental, and the two words come from entirely different Latin roots.