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To liberate or free; to terminate or extinguish. A discharge is the act or instrument by which a contract or agreement is ended. A mortgage is discharged if it has been carried out to the full extent originally contemplated or terminated prior to total execution.

Discharge also means to release, as from legal confinement in prison or the military service, or from some legal obligation such as jury duty, or the payment of debts by a person who is bankrupt. The document that indicates that an individual has been legally released from the military service is called a discharge.

The performance of a duty discharges it. An attorney may speak of discharging a legal obligation.



v. 1) to perform one's duties. 2) to dismiss someone from a job. 3) to pay one's debts or obligations. 4) in bankruptcy, to issue an order of the court that all debts (with certain statutory exceptions) are forgiven and need not be paid.



1 in any obligation, the termination of that obligation without liability on either party. In the Scots law of contract, discharge maybe by performance or novation, compensation, confusion, acceptance payment or delegation.
2 in the law of NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS a bill of exchange is discharged when all rights of action thereon are extinguished. It then ceases to be negotiable, and if it subsequently comes into the hands of a holder in due course he acquires no right of action on the instrument. A bill is discharged by payment in due course.
Collins Dictionary of Law © W.J. Stewart, 2006

DISCHARGE, practice. The act by which a person in confinement, under some legal process, or held on an accusation of some crime or misdemeanor, is set at liberty; the writing containing the order for his being so set at liberty, is also called a discharge.
     2. The discharge of a defendant, in prison under a ca. sa., when made by the plaintiff, has the operation of satisfying the debt, the plaintiff having no other remedy. 4 T. R. 526. But when the discharge is in consequence of the insolvent laws, or the defendant dies in prison, the debt is not satisfied. In the first place the plaintiff has a remedy against the property of the defendant, acquired after his discharge, and, in the last case, against the executors or administrators of the debtor. Bac. Ab. Execution, D; Bingh. on Execution, 266.

References in periodicals archive ?
Caption: Figure 1: Purulent discharge related to number 13.
Moreover, even if the air leak is stopped the purulent discharge may persist, meaning that drainage over a long duration maybe required (Table 1).
The use of antibiotics should be limited to treatment of acute episodes associated with purulent discharge from Stensen's duct, or an acutely unwell child.
swelling of the umbilicus fever heat pain and purulent discharge; and severe infection i.e.
In the abdomen, the only pathologic finding was purulent discharge in a Penrose drain.
The definition includes purulent discharge, nasal obstruction, and facial pain-pressure-fullness.
She described the case of a healthy term 4-day-old baby who presented with eye swelling and purulent discharge, but no other systemic findings.
There may be nasal scabbing, a blocked nose with an offensive purulent discharge, a post nasal-drip and associated cough.
After stabilization of his neurological status, his general clinical condition was not improved and the skin infection on cannulation sites was worsened with increased purulent discharge. Pseudomonas species was identified on bacterial cultures of pus and blood in addition to fungus in urine analysis.
Various clinical pictures including mild-moderate conjunctival erythema, little, mucoid or abundant, purulent discharge, ocular edema, conjunctival edema or pseudomembrane formation may be observed (7,8,18).
Clinical examination of the left ear confirmed the foul-smelling purulent discharge, along with a postero-superior marginal tympanic membrane perforation, granulation material, and a cholesteatoma.
Physical examination may reveal diffuse mucosal oedema with narrowing of the middle meatus, inferior turbinate hypertrophy and copious rhinorrhoea or purulent discharge. Pain localised to the sinuses on bending forward is more reliable than pain provoked by percussion of the sinuses.