Legal Term Dictionary

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  • GUILD
    A voluntary association of persons pursuing the same trade, art, profession, or business, such as printers, goldsmiths, wool merchants, etc., united under a distinct organization of their own, analogous to that of a corporation, regulating the affairs of their trade or business by their own laws and rules, and aiming, More...
  • GUILDHALL
    The hall or place of meeting of a guild, or gild. The place of meeting of a municipal corporation. 8 Steph. Comm. 173, note. The mercantile or commercial gilds of the Saxons are supposed to have given rise to the present municipal corporations of England, whose place of meeting is More...
  • GUILLOTINE
    An instrument for decapitation, used in France for the infliction of the death penalty on convicted criminals, consisting, essentially, of a heavy and weighted knife-blade moving perpendicularly between grooved posts, which is made to fall from a considerable height upon the neck of the sufferer, immovably fixed in position to More...
  • GUILT
    In criminal law. That quality which imparts criminality to a motive or act and renders the person amenable to punishment by the law. That disposition to violate the law which has manifested itself by some act already done. The opposite of Innocence. See Ruth. Inst. 4>. 1, c. 18, | More...
  • GUILTY
    Having committed a crime or tort; the word used by a prisoner in pleading to an indictment when he confesses the crime of which he is charged, and by the jury in convicting. Com. v. Walter, 83 Pa. 108, 24 Am. Rep. 154; Jessie v. State, 28 Miss. 108; State More...
  • GUINEA
    A coin formerly issued by the English mint, but all these coins were called in in the time of Wm. IV. The word now means only the sum of 1 POUND 1s., in which denomination the fees of counsel are always given.
  • GULE OF AUGUST
    The first of August, being the day of St Peter ad Vincula.
  • GULES
    The heraldic name of the color usually called "red." The word is derived from the Arabic word "ffule" a rose, and was probably introduced by the Crusaders. Gules is denoted in engravings by numerous perpendicular lines. Heralds who blazoned by planets and Jewels called it "Mars," and "ruby." Wharton.
  • GURGES
    Lat. Properly a whirlpool, but in old English law and conveyancing, a deep pit filled with water, distinguished from "stagnum," which was a shallow pool or pond. Co. Litt 5; Johnson v. Rayner, 6 Gray (Mass.) 107.
  • GURGITES
    Wears. Jacob.
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