defeasance means Destruction, defeat, overthrow. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
DEFEASANCE — [Noun] A legal instrument or condition that renders a deed, contract, or estate void if a specified future event occurs. From Anglo-Norman defeasaunce, from Old French defesance, from desfaire ("to undo"). Unlike "annulment," which retroactively erases a contract as if it never was, or "termination," which broadly concludes an agreement, defeasance is a dormant nullity woven into the instrument's very fabric—a pre-arranged unmaking. It is the ticking clock in a bond indenture awaiting final payment, the clause in a will that revokes a bequest if a portrait is removed from the wall, or the silent tripwire in a mortgage that reverts a title. In this precise contingency lies the law's formal acknowledgement that all things built contain the elegant blueprint for their own dismantling.
noun
- Destruction, defeat, overthrow.“that hoarie king, with all his traine, / Being arriued, where that champion stout / After his foes defeasance did remaine […]”
- The rendering void of a contract or deed; an annulment or abrogation.