Search the Dictionary

Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. If success a lover's toil attends, Few ask, if fraud or force attained his ends. Pope.

according to, or authorized by, law; specif., contrary to, or in violation of, human law; unlawful; illicit; hence, immoral; as, an illegal act; illegal trade; illegal love. Bp. Burnet.

The quality or condition of being illegal; unlawfulness; as, the illegality of trespass or of false imprisonment; also, an illegal act.

To make or declare illegal or unlawful.

In a illegal manner; unlawfully.

Illegality, unlawfulness.

Not according to law; not regular or authorized; unlawful; improper.

In a illegitimate manner; unlawfully.

Not permitted or allowed; prohibited; unlawful; as, illicit trade; illicit intercourse; illicit pleasure. One illicit . . . transaction always leads to another. Burke. -- Il*lic"it*ly, adv. -- Il*lic"it*ness, n.

An excessive, arbitrary, or unlawful exaction; hence, a trick or deception put on laid on others; cheating; fraud; delusion; imposture. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition. Shak.

and American law are in the nature of actions in personam against a person alleged to be unlawfully withholding the property.

d; not restraining the passions or appetites, particularly the sexual appetite; indulging unlawful lust; unchaste; lewd.

; as, the inconvenience of the arrangement. They plead against the inconvenience, not the unlawfulness, . . . of ceremonies in burial. Hooker.

and place; as, what is expedient at one time may be inexpedient at another. If it was not unlawful, yet it was highly inexpedient to use those ceremonies. Bp. Burnet.

One who interlopes; one who interlopes; one who unlawfully intrudes upon a property, a station, or an office; one who interferes wrongfully or officiously. The untrained man, . . . the interloper as to the professions. I. Taylor.

The unlawful taking and carrying away of things personal with intent to deprive the right owner of the same; theft. Cf. Embezzlement. Grand larceny and Petit larceny are distinctions having reference to the nature or value of the property stolen. They are abolished in England. -- Mixed, or Compound, larceny, that whic…

Suiting, or proceeding from, lustfulness; involving unlawful sexual desire; as, lewd thoughts, conduct, or language.

An officious or unlawful intermeddling in a cause depending between others, by assisting either party with money or means to carry it on. See Champerty. Wharton. Cap of maintenance. See under Cap.

The unlawful killing of a man, either in negligenc

Unlawfully or irregularly begotten; of bad origin; pernicious. "Valor misbegot." Shak.