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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  • RACK
    An engine of torture anciently used in the inquisitorial method of examining persons charged with crime, the office of which was to break the limbs or dislocate the joints.
  • RACK-RENT
    A rent of the full value of the tenement, or near It. 2 Bl. Comm. 43.
  • RACK-VINTAGE
    Wines drawn from the lees. Cowell.
  • RADICALS
    A political party. The term arose in England, in 1818, when t\e popular leaders, Hunt Cartwright, and others, sought to obtain a radical reform In the representative system of parliament. Bol-ingbroke (Disc. Parties, Let. 18) employs the term in Its present accepted sense: "Such a remedy might have wrought a More...
  • RADOUB
    In French law. A term including the repairs made to a ship, and a fresh supply of furniture and victuals, munitions, and other provisions required for the voyage. 8 Pard. Droit Commer. f 602.
  • RAFFLE
    A kind of lottery in which several persons pay, in shares, the value of something put up as a stake, and then determine by chance (as by casting dice) which one of them shall become the sole possessor of it Webster; Prendergast v. State, 41 Tex. Cr. R. 358, 57 More...
  • RAGEMAN
    A statute, so called, of justices assigned by Edward I. and his council, to go a circuit through all England, and to hear and determine all complaints of injuries done within five years next before Michaelmas, in the fourth year of his reign. Spelman. Also a rule, form, regimen, or More...
  • RAGMAN'S ROLL, OR RAGIMUND'S ROLL
    A roll, called from one Ragimund or Ragimont a legate in Scotland, who, summoning all the beneficed clergymen in that kingdom, caused them on oath to give in tin true value of their benefices, according to which they were afterwards taxed by the court of Rome. Wharton.
  • RAILROAD
    A road or way on which iron or steel rails are laid for wheels to run on, for the conveyance of heavy loads in cars or carriages propelled by steam or other motive power. The word "railway" is of exactly equivalent import. Whether or not this term includes roads operated More...
  • RAILWAY
    In law, this term Is of exactly equivalent import to "railroad." See State v..Brin, 30 Minn. 522,. 10 N. W. 406; Millvale Borough v. Evergreen Ry. Co., 131 Pa. 1, 18 Atl. 093, 7 L. R. A. 369; Massa chusetts L. & T. Co. v. Hamilton, 88 Fed 592, 32 More...
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