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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  • MATERNA MATERNIS
    Lat. A maxim of the French law, signifying that property of a decedent acquired by him through his mother descends to the relations on the mother's side.
  • MATERNAL
    That which belongs to, or comes from, the mother; as maternal authority, maternal relation, maternal estate, maternal line. -Maternal property. That which comes from the mother of the party, and other ascendants of the maternal stock. Dom. Liv. Prel. t '3, s. 2, no. 12.
  • MATERNITY
    The character, relation, state, or condition of a mother.
  • MATERTERA
    Lat In the civil law! A maternal aunt; a mother's sister. Inst 3, 6, ;; Bract, fol. 68b. -Matertera magna. A great aunt: a grandmother's sister, (aviss soror) Dig. 38, 10, 10, 15.-Matertera major. A greater aunt; a t great-grandmother's sister, (proavice soror;) a father's or mother's great-aunt, (patris vel More...
  • MATHEMATICAL EVIDENCE
    See EVIDENCE.
  • MATRICIDE
    The murder of a mother; or one who has slain his mother.
  • MATRICULA
    In the civil and old Eng. llsh law. A register of the admission of officers and persons entered Into any body or society, whereof a list was made. Hence those who are admitted to a college or university are said to be "matriculated." Also a kind of almshouse, which had More...
  • MATRICULATE
    To enter as a student in a, university. Matrimonia debent esse libera. Marriages ought to be free. A maxim of the civil law. 2 Kent, Comm. 102.
  • MATRIMONIAL
    Of or pertaining to matrimony or the estate of marriage. -Matrimonial causes. In English ecclesiastical law. Causes of action or injuries respecting the rights of marriage. One of the three divisions of .causes or injuries cognizable by the ecclesiastical courts, comprising suits for jactitation of marriage, and for restitution of More...
  • MATRIMONIUM
    Lat. In Roman law. A legal marriage, contracted in strict ac--cordance with the forms of the older Roman law, ?. e., either with the farreum, the co-cmptio, or by usus. This was allowed only to Roman citizens and to those neighboring peoples to whom the right of connuhium had been More...
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