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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  • PROVISOR
    In old English law. A provider, or purveyor. Spelman. Also a person nominated to be the next incumbent of a benefice (not yet vacant) by the pope.
  • PROVOCATION
    The act of inciting another to do a particular deed. Such conduct or actions on the part of one person towards another as tend to arouse rage, resentment, or fury in the latter against the former, and thereby cause him to do some illegal act against or in relation to More...
  • PROVOST
    The principal magistrate of a royal burgh in Scotland; also a governing officer of a university or college.
  • PROVOST-MARSHAL
    In English law. An officer of the royal navy who had the charge of prisoners taken at sea, and sometimes also on land. In military law, the officer acting as the head of the military police of any post, camp, city or other place in military occupation, or district under More...
  • PROXENETA
    Lat In the civil law. A broker; one who negotiated or arranged the terms of a contract between two parties, as between buyer and seller; one who negotiated a marriage; a match-maker. Calvin.
  • PROXIMATE
    Immediate; nearest; next in order. -Proximate cause. The proximate cause is the efficient cause, the one that necessarily sets the other causes in operation. The causes that are merely incidental or instruments of a superior or controlling agency are not the proximate causes and the responsible ones, though they may More...
  • PROXIMITY
    Kindred between two persons. Dig. 38, 16, 8. Proximus est cni nemo anteoedit, sn-premns est qnem nemo seqnitnr. He is next whom no one precedes; he is last whom no one follows. Dig. 50, 16, 92.
  • PROXY
    A person who is substituted or deputed by another to represent him and act for him, particularly in some meeting or public body. Also the instrument containing the appointment of such person. The word is said to be contracted from "procuracy/' (g. v.) One who is appointed or deputed by More...
  • PRUDENCE
    Carefulness, precaution, attentiveness, and good judgment as applied to action or conduct That degree of care required by the exigencies or circumstances under which it is to be exercised. Cronk v. Railway Co., 3 S. D. 93, 52 N. W. 420. This term, in the language of the law, Is More...
  • PRYK
    A kind of service of tenure. Blount says it signifles an old-fashioned spur with one point only, which the tenant, holding land by this tenure, was to find for the king. Wharton.
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