One is "to seize, as a prize"-- usually applies to privateers.
The second is "to pronounce as unfit for use".
The third is to "give up on"-- examples were from medicine-- "to be
condemned by his doctors".
None fit real well but sort of convey the idea. They're from the Oxford
English Dictionary, 2nd ed.
Larry Longerbeam wrote:
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> West Wight Potter Website at URL
> http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> I've been reading "The North Bay Narrative" by Walter Staples, an account of
> a settlement in the La Poile Bay and River area of Newfoundland where I have
> salmon fished a couple of times. In a section telling how some North Bay
> residents built a two-masted schooner they couldn't sell, the writer says
> they "condemned" it, rigged it, sailed it to Rose Blanch to get papers for
> it and started sailing it commercially. My "Webster's Collegiate" gives
> no definition suitable for the context. Does anyone know the definition of
> "condemn" as used above?
-- *********************************************************************** Ron Force rforce@uidaho.edu Dean of Library Services (208) 885-6534 University of Idaho Moscow 83844-2350 ************************************************************************