Search the Dictionary

A declaration or avowal of one's own act, to give it legal validity; as, the acknowledgment of a deed before a proper officer. Also, the certificate of the officer attesting such declaration. Acknowledgment money, in some parts of England, a sum paid by copyhold tenants, on the death of their landlords, as an acknowled…

Act of indemnity, a statute passed for the protection of those who have committed some illegal act subjecting them to penalties. Abbott. -- Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the country), and not a matter of record.

The management and disposal, under legal authority, of the estate of an intestate, or of a testator having no competent executor.

Proceeding from adulterous intercourse. Hence: Spurious; without the support of law; illegal. When any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation without a charter, such were called adulterine guilds. Adam Smith.

Counseling to perform a specific illegal act. Wharton. Advice boat, a vessel employed to carry dispatches or to reconnoiter; a dispatch boat. -- To take advice. (a) To accept advice. (b) To consult with another or others.

Otherwise; otherwise called; -- a term used in legal proceedings to connect the different names of any one who has gone by two or more, and whose true name is for any cause doubtful; as, Smith, alias Simpson.

The state or legal condition of being an alien.

A transfer of title, or a legal conveyance of property to another.

The status or legal condition of an alien; alienage. The law was very gentle in the construction of the disability of alienism. Kent.

made to a wife out of her husband's estate or income for her support, upon her divorce or legal separation from him, or during a suit for the same. Wharton. Burrill.

Not yet fixed legally, or settled past alteration; alterable; as, the dispositions of a will are ambulatory until the death of the testator.

a superior judge or court for a rehearing or review on account of alleged injustice or illegality in the trial below. We say, the cause was appealed from an inferior court.

Hence: To take or seize (a person) by legal process; to arrest; as, to apprehend a criminal.

The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest; as, the felon, after his apprehension, escaped.

One who is bound by indentures or by legal agreement to serve a mechanic, or other person, for a certain time, with a view to learn the art, or trade, in which his master is bound to instruct him.

n apprentice; the state in which a person is gaining instruction in a trade or art, under legal agreement.

age; an accessory; something annexed to another thing more worthy; in common parlance and legal acceptation, something belonging to another thing as principal, and which passes as incident to it, as a right of way, or other easement to land; a right of common to pasture, an outhouse, barn, garden, or orchard, to a hous…

The taking or apprehending of a person by authority of law; legal restraint; custody. Also, a decree, mandate, or warrant. William . . . ordered him to be put under arrest. Macaulay. [Our brother Norway] sends out arrests On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys. Shak.

An arrest; a legal seizure.

assist a judge or magistrate with his special knowledge of the subject to be decided; as legal assessors, nautical assessors. Mozley & W.