1.
[syn: rescue, deliverance, delivery, saving]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Deliverance \De*liv"er*ance\, n. [F. d['e]livrance, fr.
d['e]livrer.]
1. The act of delivering or freeing from restraint,
captivity, peril, and the like; rescue; as, the
deliverance of a captive.
[1913 Webster]
He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to
preach deliverance to the captives. --Luke iv. 18.
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One death or one deliverance we will share.
--Dryden.
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2. Act of bringing forth children. [Archaic] --Shak.
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3. Act of speaking; utterance. [Archaic] --Shak.
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Note: In this and in the preceding sense delivery is the word
more commonly used.
[1913 Webster]
4. The state of being delivered, or freed from restraint.
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I do desire deliverance from these officers. --Shak.
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5. Anything delivered or communicated; esp., an opinion or
decision expressed publicly. [Scot.]
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6. (Metaph.) Any fact or truth which is decisively attested
or intuitively known as a psychological or philosophical
datum; as, the deliverance of consciousness.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
deliverance
n 1: recovery or preservation from loss or danger; "work is the
deliverance of mankind"; "a surgeon's job is the saving of
lives" [syn: rescue, deliverance, delivery, saving]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
131 Moby Thesaurus words for "deliverance":
Emancipation Proclamation, abalienation, accommodation, accordance,
action, affranchisement, alienation, amortization, amortizement,
assignation, assignment, award, awarding, bargain and sale, barter,
bequeathal, bestowal, bestowment, break, breakout, catharsis,
cession, cleansing, communication, concession, condemnation,
conferment, conferral, consideration, consignation, consignment,
contribution, conveyance, conveyancing, decision, decree, deeding,
delivery, demise, determination, diagnosis, dictum, discharge,
disenthrallment, disposal, disposition, donation, doom,
emancipation, emergence, emotional release, endowment, enfeoffment,
enfranchisement, escape, escapism, evasion, exchange, extrication,
finding, flight, freeing, furnishment, gay liberation, getaway,
gifting, giving, grant, granting, impartation, impartment,
intermission, investiture, issuance, issue, jailbreak, leak,
leakage, lease and release, liberality, liberation, lifesaving,
manumission, offer, order, outlet, precedent, presentation,
presentment, prisonbreak, prognosis, pronouncement, provision,
purgation, purge, purging, ransom, recovery, redemption, release,
removal, reprieve, rescue, resolution, respite, retrieval,
riddance, ruling, sale, salvage, salvation, saving, sentence,
setting at liberty, setting-free, settlement, settling,
subscription, supplying, surcease, surrender, suspension, trading,
transfer, transference, transmission, transmittal, vent, verdict,
vesting, vouchsafement
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
DELIVERANCE, Practice. A term used by the clerk in court to every prisoner
who is arraigned and pleads not guilty to whom he wishes a good deliverance.
In modern practice this is seldom used.