Legal Term Dictionary

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  • PRIORITY
    A legal preference or precedence. When two persons have similar rights in respect of the same subject-matter, but one is entitled to exercise his right to the exclusion of the other, he is said to have priority. In old English law. An antiquity of tenure, in comparison with one not. More...
  • PRISAGE
    An ancient hereditary revenue of the crown, consisting in the right to take a certain quantity from cargoes or wine imported into England. In Edward I.'s reign it was converted Into a pecuniary duty called "butlerage." 2 Steph. Comm. 561.
  • PRISE
    Fr. In French law. Prize; captured property. Ord. Mar. liv. 3, tit 9. See Dole v. Insurance Co., 6 Allen (Mass.) 373.
  • PRISEL EN AUTER LIEU
    L. Fr. A taking in another place. A plea In abatement in the action of replevin. 2 Ld. Raym. 1016, 1017.
  • PRISON
    A public building for the confinement or safe custody of persons, whether as a puuisbment Imposed by the law or otherwise in the course of the administration of Justice. See Scarborough v. Thornton, 9 Pa. 451; Sturtevant v. Com., 158 Mass. 598, 33 N. E. 648; Pen. Code N. Y. More...
  • PRISONAM FRANGENTIBUS, STATUTUTE DE
    The English statute 1 Edw. II. St 2, (in Rev. St 23 Edw. I.,) a still unrepealed statute, whereby it is felony for a felon to break prison, but misdemeanor only for a misdemeanant to do so. 1 Hale, P. 0. 612.
  • PRISONER
    One who is deprived of his liberty; one who is against his will kept in confinement or custody. A person restrained of his liberty upon any action, civil or criminal, or upon commandment Cowell. A person on trial for crime. "The prisoner at the bar." The Jurors are told to More...
  • PRIST
    Ready. In the old forms of oral pleading, this term expressed a tender or Joinder of issue. Prius vitiia laboravimus, nune legibus. 4 Inst 76. We labored flrst with vices, now with laws.
  • PRIVATE
    Affecting or belonging to private individuals, as distinct from the public generally. Not official. -Private person. An individual who is not the incumbent of an office. As to. private "Act," "Agent," "Bill," "Boundary," "Bridge," '^Carrier," "Chapel/* oCorporation," "Easement," "Examination," "Perry," "Nuisance," "Property," "Prosecutor," "Rights," "Road," "Sale," "School," "Seal," "Statute," "Stream," More...
  • PRIVATE LAW
    As used in contradistinction to public law, the term means all that part of the law which is administered between citizen and citizen, or which is concerned'with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where both the person in whom the right inheres and the person upon whom More...
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