Search the Dictionary

The act of plundering; robbery; deprivation; despoliation. Legal spoliation, which will impoverish one part of the community in order to corrupt the remainder. Sir G. C. Lewis.

An American sciænoid fish (Cynoscion regalis), abundant on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and much valued as a food fish. It is of a bright silvery color, with iridescent reflections. Called also weakfish, squitee, chickwit, and sea trout. The spotted squeteague (C. nebulosus) of the Southern United States is…

To put a stamp on, as for postage; as, to stamp a letter; to stamp a legal document. To stamp out, to put an end to by sudden and energetic action; to extinguish; as, to stamp out a rebellion.

; -- called also standgale, standgall, stanchel, stand hawk, stannel hawk, steingale, stonegall. [Written also staniel, stannyel, and stanyel.] With what wing the staniel checks at it. Shak.

A weight which legally is fourteen pounds, but in practice varies with the article weighed. [Eng.]

s to secure results; effective power in an institution or enactment; security; validity; legal or moral force; logical conclusiveness; as, the strength of social or legal obligations; the strength of law; the strength of public opinion; strength of evidence; strength of argument.

To serve with a writ of subpoena; to command attendance in court by a legal writ, under a penalty in case of disobedience.

To seek justice or right from, by legal process; to institute process in law against; to bring an action against; to prosecute judicially.

The attempt to gain an end by legal process; an action or process for the recovery of a right or claim; legal application to a court for justice; prosecution of right before any tribunal; as, a civil suit; a criminal suit; a suit in chancery. I arrest thee at the suit of Count Orsino. Shak. In England the several suits…

to wear as an evidence of their having contributed. Such solicitation is now subject to legal restriction in various places.

An entailment or deed whereby the legal course of succession is cut off, and an arbitrary one substituted. [Written also tailzee.]

That may be legally charged by a court against the plaintiff of defendant in a suit; as, taxable costs. -- Tax"a*ble*ness, n. -- Tax"a*bly, adv.

The thing offered; especially, money offered in payment of an obligation. Shak. Legal tender. See under Legal. -- Tender of issue (Law), a form of words in a pleading, by which a party offers to refer the question raised upon it to the appropriate mode of decision. Burrill.

hose of an ordinary quadruped, than in the Ornithopoda. It includes the repacious genera Megalosaurus, Creosaurus, and their allies.

A bond; an obligation, moral or legal; as, the sacred ties of friendship or of duty; the ties of allegiance. No distance breaks the tie of blood. Young.

The act or process of torturing. Torture, whitch had always been deciared illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May,

Deniable; specifically (Law), liable to legal objection; as, a traversable presentment. Sir M. Hale.

s of longwinged arboreal pigeons native of Asia, Africa, and Australia, and belonging to Megaloprepia, Carpophaga, and allied genera. -- Tree pipit. (Zoöl.) See under Pipit. -- Tree porcupine (Zoöl.), any one of several species of Central and South American arboreal porcupines belonging to the genera Chætomys and Sph…

bunal; the mode of determining a question of fact in a court of law; the examination, in legal form, of the facts in issue in a cause pending before a competent tribunal, for the purpose of determining such issue.

Conformably to law; legally; legitimately. His innocent babe [is] truly begotten. Shak.