Legal Term Dictionary

Search our free database of thousands of legal terms. The easiest-to-read, most user-friendly guide to legal terms.This dictionary is from the early 20th century and is not to be construed as legal advice.

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  • BATTTURE
    In Louisiana. A marine term used to denote a bottom of sand, stone, or rock mixed together and rising towards the surface of the water; an elevation of the bed of a river under the surface of the water, since it is rising towards it; sometimes, however, used to denote More...
  • BAWD
    One who procures opportunities for persons of opposite sexes to cohabit in an illicit manner; who may be, while exercising the trade of a bawd, perfectly innocent of committing in his or her own proper person the crime either of adultery or of fornication. See Dyer v. Morris, 4 Mo. More...
  • BAWDY-HOUSE
    A house of prostitution; a brothel. A house or dwelling maintained for the convenience and resort of persons desiring unlawful sexual connection. Davis v. State, 2 Tex. App. 427; State v. Porter, 88 Ark. 638; People v. Buchanan, 1 Idaho, 689.
  • BAY
    A pond-head made of a great height to keep in water for the supply of a mill, etc., so that the wheel of the mill may be turned by the water rushing thence, through a passage or flood-gate. St. 27 Eliz. c. 19. Also an arm of the sea surrounded More...
  • BAYLEY
    In old English law. Bailiff. This term is used in the laws of the colony of New Plymouth, Mass., A. D. 1670, 1671. Burrill.
  • BAYOU
    A species of creek or stream common in Louisiana and Texas. An outlet from a swamp, pond, or lagoon, to a river, or the sea. See Surgett v. Laplce, 8 How. 48, 70, 12 L. Ed. 982. .
  • BEACH
    This term, in its ordinary signification, when applied to a place on tide waters, means the space between ordinary high and low water mark, or the space over which the tide usually ebbs and flows. It is a term not more significant of a sea margin than "shore." Niles v. More...
  • BEACON
    A light-house, or sea-mark, formerly used to alarm the country, in case of the approach of an enemy, but now used for the guidance of ships at sea, by night, as well as by day.
  • BEACONAGE
    Money paid for the maintenance of a beacon or signal-light.
  • BEADLE
    In English ecclesiastical law. An inferior parish officer, who is chosen by the vestry, and whose business is to attend the vestry, to give notice of its meetings, to execute its orders, to attend upon inquests, and to assist the constables. Wharton.
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