immured

See etymology at immure.

immured

1. simple past and past participle of immure

immured (comparative more immured, superlative most immured)

1. imprisoned or confined.
2. buried within or built into a wall, whether respectfully (as with shrines, monuments, or tombs) or as torture (if buried alive).
3. walled in.
   • 1989, John McPhee, The Control of Nature, →ISBN, pages 118–119:

     Pompeians were packed inside defensive walls, and they came and went through gates—the Herculaneum Gate, the Vesuvius Gate, the Water Gate. Vestmann islanders, while clustered, were immured by nothing but the sea, and they came and went through their famous harbor.

4. (crystallography and geology, of impurities in a growing crystal) trapped or captured (within the surrounding matrix).

• drummie