to free or deliver from confinement, violence, danger, or evil.
2.
Law. to liberate or take by forcible or illegal means from lawful custody.
–noun
3.
the act of rescuing.
Origin: 1300–50; (v.) ME rescuen < OF rescourre, equiv. to re-re-+ escourre to shake, drive out, remove < L excutere (ex-ex-1+ -cutere, comb. form of quatere to shake); (n.) ME, deriv. of the v.
c.1300 (n. and v.), from stem of O.Fr. rescourre, from re-, intensive prefix, + escourre "to cast off, discharge," from L. excutere "to shake off, drive away," from ex- "out" + -cutere, combining form of quatere "to shake" (see quash).
[res-kyoo] 
verb, -cued, -cu⋅ing, noun 