Porpresture

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An unlawful intrusion or encroachment onto land or a public highway, especially one that obstructs or narrows it to the detriment of others
2. Wrongful occupation of territory belonging to another person or to the public, such as building over a road or common ground
3. A legal term for an illegal encroachment that takes over or blocks land or a thoroughfare belonging to someone else

Etymology: Before it named a legal wrong, this word described the act of taking something wholly. It comes from Anglo-French "porpresture," built on the verb "porprendre," "to seize entirely," which combines "prendre" ("to take") with an intensifying prefix. The same verb family gave English "prehension," the act of grasping. In medieval English law, a porpresture was an encroachment on land that belonged to someone else, most often the Crown or a community. A man who built a house, fenced off a strip, or enclosed part of a common was committing one, because he had seized ground that was not his to take. Courts could order such structures removed. The sense stayed close to the original idea of wholesale appropriation, so the legal term preserves the older meaning of grasping and holding on to something.

Synonyms: encroachment