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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  • ARRONDISSEMENT
    In France, one of the subdivisions of a department.
  • ARSAE ET PENSATAE
    Burnt and weighed. A term formerly applied to money tested or assayed by fire and by weighing.
  • ARSENALS
    Store-houses for arms; dock-yards, magazines, and other military stores.
  • ARSER IN LE MAIN
    Burning in the hand. The punishment by burning or branding the left thumb of lay offenders who claimed and were allowed the benefit of clergy, so as to distinguish them in case they made a second claim of clergy. 5 Coke, 51; 4 Bl. Comm. 367.
  • ARSON
    Arson, at common law, is the act of unlawfully and maliciously burning the house of another man. 4 Steph. Comm. 99; 2 Russ. Crimes, 896; Steph. Crim. Dig. 298. Arson, by the common law, is the willful and malicious burning of the house of another. The word "house," as here More...
  • ARSURA
    The trial of money by heating it after it was coined. The loss of weight occasioned by this process. A pound was said to burn so many pence (tot ardere detiarios) as it lost by the fire. Spelman. The term is now obsolete.
  • ART
    A principle put in practice and applied to some art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. Earle v. Sawyer, 4 Mason, 1, Fed. Cas. No. 4,247. See Act Cong. July 8, 1870. In the law of patents, this term means a useful art or manufacture which is beneficial and which More...
  • ART, WORDS OF
    Words used in a technical sense; words scientifically fit to carry the sense assigned them.
  • ART AND PART
    In Scotch law. The offense committed by one who aids and assists the commission of a crime, but who is not the principal or chief actor in its actual commission. An accessary. A principal in the second degree. Paters. Comp.
  • ARTHEL, ARDHEL, OR ARDDELIO
    To avouch; as if a man were taken with stolen goods in his possession he was allowed a lawful arthel, i. e.; vouchee, to clear him of the felony; but provision was made against it,by 28 Hen. VIII. c. 6. Blount
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