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The art of speaking or writing with correctness or according to established usage; speech considered with regard to the rules of a grammar. The original bad grammar and bad spelling. Macaulay.

In law and common usage: A promise to answer for the payment of some debt, or the performance of some duty, in case of the failure of another person, who is, in the first instance, liable to such payment or performance; an engagement which secures or insures another against a contingency; a warranty; a security. Same a…

In law and common usage: An undertaking to answer for the payment of some debt, or the performance of some contract or duty, of another, in case of the failure of such other to pay or perform; a guarantee; a warranty; a security.

Fixed or established custom; ordinary course of conduct; practice; usage; hence, prominently, the involuntary tendency or aptitude to perform certain actions which is acquired by their frequent repetition; as, habit is second nature; also, peculiar ways of acting; characteristic forms of behavior. A man of very shy, re…

aid on the decease of a tenant. Blackstone. Bouvier. Heriot custom, a heriot depending on usage. -- Heriot service (Law), a heriot due by reservation in a grant or lease of lands. Spelman. Blackstone.

the same ancestor, and then divided in equal portions among all the daughters. In modern usage, a mixing together, or throwing into a common mass or stock, of the estate left by a person deceased and the amounts advanced to any particular child or children, for the purpose of a more equal division, or of equalizing th…

t were obliged to take up, joining in the pursuit till the malefactor was taken; in later usage, a written proclamation issued on the escape of a felon from prison, requiring all persons to aid in retaking him. Burrill.

to the peculiar structural form of a language; in extend use, an expression sanctioned by usage, having a sense peculiar to itself and not agreeing with the logical sense of its structural form; also, the phrase forms peculiar to a particular author. Some that with care true eloquence shall teach, And to just idioms fi…

Not authorized by good usage; not genuine; spurious; as, an illegitimate word. Illegitimate fertilization, or Illegitimate union (Bot.), the fertilization of pistils by stamens not of their own length, in heterogonously dimorphic and trimorphic flowers. Darwin.

tely ancient; as, existing from time immemorial. "Immemorial elms." Tennyson. "Immemorial usage or custom." Sir M. Hale. Time immemorial (Eng. Law.), a time antedating (legal) history, and beyond "legal memory" so called; formerly an indefinite time, but in 1276 this time was fixed by statute as the begining of the rei…

of international intercourse, being drawn from diplomatic discussion, textbooks, proof of usage, and from recitals in treaties. It is called public when treating of the relations of sovereign powers, and private when of the relations of persons of different nationalities. International law is now, by the better opinion…

Not regular; not conforming to a law, method, or usage recognized as the general rule; not according to common form; not conformable to nature, to the rules of moral rectitude, or to established principles; not normal; unnatural; immethodical; unsymmetrical; erratic; no straight; not uniform; as, an irregular line; an…

A small due, in meal, established by usage, which is paid to the under miller. [Scot.]

all be opened unto you. Matt. vii. 7. To knock about, to go about, taking knocks or rough usage; to wander about; to saunter. [Colloq.] "Knocking about town." W. Irving. -- To knock up, to fail of strength; to become wearied or worn out, as with labor; to give out. "The horses were beginning to knock up under the fati…

A wife; -- not now in approved usage. Goldsmith.

To bring under the power or influence of the Romans or Latins; to affect with the usages of the Latins, especially in speech. "Latinized races." Lowell.

Any edict, decree, order, ordinance, statute, resolution, judicial, decision, usage, etc., or recognized, and enforced, by the controlling authority.

or envoy, and the persons associated with him in his mission; an embassy; or, in stricter usage, a diplomatic minister and his suite; a deputation.

party, in the American Revolution, which favored independence of England; in more recent usage, a party which favored the emancipation of the slaves. -- Liberty pole, a tall flagstaff planted in the ground, often surmounted by a liberty cap. [U. S.] -- Moral liberty, that liberty of choice which is essential to moral…

Sausages; -- because linked together. [Colloq.]