Idiom idiom
durance vile
Meaning
A long prison sentence.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The prisoner spent years in durance vile.”
“After the judge delivered the harsh sentence, the man was led away to begin his long durance vile.”
“Condemned for his political dissent, the writer spent the remainder of his life in durance vile, far from the world he once knew.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026