Forfeit

To forfeit signifies the incurring of a forfeiture or penalty and is antagonistic to the idea of mere payment of compensation for damages for breach of contract.

172 111. App. 92.

To lose as the penalty of some misdeed or negligence. The word includes not merely the idea of losing, but also of having the property transferred to another without the consent of the owner and wrongdoer. This is the essential meaning of the word, whether it be that an offender is to forfeit condition, or to the king for some crime. Cowell says that forfeiture is general and confiscation a particular forfeiture to the king's exchequer. The modern distinction, however, seems to refer rather to a difference between forfeiture as relating to acts of the owner, and confiscation as relating to acts of the government.

1 Story (U. S.) 134; 13 Pet. (U. S.) 157; 11 Johns. (N. Y.) 293.

Confiscation is more generally used of an appropriation of an enemy's property; forfeiture, of the taking possession of property to which the owner, who may be a citizen, has lost title through violation of law.

See 1 Kent, Comm. 67; 1 Story (U. S.) 134.