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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  • ARMIGER
    An armor-bearer; an esquire. A title of dignity belonging to gentlemen authorized to bear arms. Cowell In its earlier meaning, a servant who carried the arms of a knight. Spelman. A tenant by scutage; a servant or valet; applied, also, to the higher servants in convents. Spelman.
  • ARMISCARA
    An ancient mode of punishment, which was to carry a saddle at the hack as a token of subjection. Spelman.
  • ARMISTICE
    A suspending or cessation of hostilities between belligerent nations or forces for a considerable time.
  • ARMORIAL BEARINGS
    In English law. A device depicted on the (now imaginary) shield of one of the nobility, of which gentry is the lowest degree. The criterion of nobility is the bearing of arms, or armorial bearings, received from ancestry. Armorum appellations, non solum seuta et gladii et galeae, sed et fustes More...
  • ARMS
    Anything that a man wears for his defense, or takes in his hands, or uses in his anger, to cast at or strike at another. Co. Utt 161b, 162a; State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. 18. This term, as it is used in the constitution, relative to the right of citizens More...
  • ARMY
    The armed forces of a nation intended for military service on land. "The term 'army' or 'armies' has never been used by congress, so far as I am advised, so as to include the navy or marines, and there is nothing in the act of 1862, or the circumstances which More...
  • AROMATARIUS
    A word formerly used for a grocer. 1 Vent. 142.
  • ARPEN
    Arpent. A measure of land of uncertain quantity mentioned in Domesday and other old books; by some called an "acre," by others "half an acre," and by others a "furlong." Spelman; Cowell; Blount. A French measure of land, containing one hundred square perches, of eighteen feet each, or about an More...
  • ARPENTATOR
    A measurer or surveyor of land. Cowell; Spelman.
  • ARRA
    In the civil law. Earnest; earnest-money ; evidence of a completed bargain. Used of a contract of marriage, as well as any other. Spelled, also, Arrha, Arrw. Calvin.
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