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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  • BURIAL
    Sepulture; the act of interring dead human bodies. See Lay v. State, 12 Ind. App. 362, 39 N. E. 768; In re Reformed, etc, Church, 7 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 476; Cemetery Ass'n v. Assessors, 37 La. Ann. 35.
  • BURKING-BURKISM
    Murder committed with the object of selling the cadaver for purposes of dissection, particularly and originally, by suffocating or strangling the victim. So named from William Burke, a notorious practitioner of this crime, who was hanged at Edinburgh in 1829. It is said that the first instance of his name More...
  • BURLAWS
    In Scotch law. Laws made by neighbors elected by common consent in the burlaw courts. Skene. -Burlaw courts. Courts consisting of neighbors selected by common consent to act as judges in determining disputes between neighbor and neighbor.
  • BURN
    To consume with fire. The verb "to burn," in an indictment for arson, is to be taken in its common meaning of "to consume with fire." Hester v. State, 17 Ga. 130.
  • BURNING FLUID
    As used in policies of insurance, this term does not mean any fluid which will burn, but it means a recognized article of commerce, called by that name, and which is a different article from naphtha or kerosene. Putnam v. Insurance Co. (C. C.) 4 Fed. 764; Wheeler v. Insurance More...
  • BURNING IN THE HAND
    In old English criminal law, laymen, upon being accorded the benefit of clergy, were burned with a hot iron in the brawn of the left thumb, in order that being thus marked, they could not again claim their clergy. 4 Bl. Comm. 367.
  • BURROCHIUM
    A burroch, dam, or small wear over a river, where traps are laid for the taking of fish. Cowell.
  • BURROWMEALIS
    In Scotch law. A term used to designate the rents paid into the king's private treasury by the burgesses or inhabitants of a borough.
  • BURSA
    Lat A purse.
  • BURSAR
    A treasurer of a college.
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