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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  • DESTINATION
    The purpose to which it is intended an article or a fund shall be applied. A testator gives a destination to a legacy when he prescribes tne specific use to which it shall be put The port at which a ship is to end her voy- o age is called More...
  • DESTITUTE
    A "destitute person" is one who has no money or other property available for his maintenance'or support Norridgewock v. Solon, 49 Me. 385; Woods v.. Perkins, 43 La. Ann. 347, 9 South. 48. iS
  • DESTROY
    As used in policies of insure o ance, leases, and in maritime law, this term is often applied to an act which renders the subject useless for its intended purpose, though it does not literally demolish or annihilate it. In re McCabe, 11 Pa. Super. Ct. 564; Solomon v. Kingston, More...
  • DESTRUCTION
    A term used in old English law, generally in connection with waste, and having, according to some, the same meaning. 1 Reeve, Eng. Law, 385 ; 3 Bl. Comm. 223. Britton, however, makes a distinction between waste of woods and destruction of houses. Britt. c. 66.
  • DESUBITO
    To weary a person with continual barkings, and then to bite; spoken of dogs. Leg Alured. 26, cited in Cunningham's Diet
  • DESUETUDE
    Disuse; cessation or discontinuance of use. Applied to obsolete statutes. James v. Comm., 12 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 227.
  • DETACHIARE
    To seize or take into custody another's goods or person.
  • DETAINER
    The act (or the juridical fact) of withholding from a person lawfully entitled the possession of land or goods; or the restraint of a man's personal liberty against his will. The wrongful keeping of a person's goods is called an "unlawful detainer" although the original taking may have been lawful. More...
  • DETAINMENT
    This term is used in policies of marine insurance, in the clause relating to "arrests, restraints, and detainments." The last two words are construed as equivalents, each meaning the effect of superior force operating directly on the vessel. Schmidt v. Insurance Co., 1 Johns. (N. Y.) 262, 3 Am. Dec. More...
  • DETENTIO
    In the civil law. That condition of fact under which one can exercise his power over a corporeal thing at his pleasure, to the exclusion of all others. It forms the substance of possession in all Its varieties. Mackeld. Rom. Law, f 238.
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