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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  • VIF-GAGE
    L. Fr. In old English law. A vivum vadium or living pledge, as distin-guished from a mortgage or dead pledge. Properly, an estate given as security for a debt, the debt to be satisfied out of the rents, issues, and profits.
  • VIGIL
    In ecclesiastical law. The eve or next day before any solemn feast.
  • VIGILANCE
    Watchfulness; precaution ; a proper degree of activity and promptness in pursuing one's rights or guarding them from infraction, or in making or discovering opportunities for the enforcement of one's lawful claims and demands. It is the opposite of laches. Vigilantibns et non dormientibns jura subveniunt. The laws aid those More...
  • VIGOR
    Lat. Strength; virtue; force; efficiency. Proprio vigore, by its own force.
  • VIIS ET MODIS
    Lat. In the ecclesias¬tical courts, service of a decree or citation viis et mod is, i. e., by all "ways and means" likely to affect the party with knowledge of its contents; is equivalent to substituted service in the temporal courts, and is op¬posed to personal service. Phillim. Ecc. Law, More...
  • VILL
    In old English law, this word was used to signify the parts into which a hundred or wapentake was divided. It also sig-nifies a town or city. Demi-vill. A town consisting of five free-men, or frank-pledges. Spelman. Villa est ez pluribus mansionibns vi-cinata, et oollata ea pluribus vioinis, et sab More...
  • VILLA REGIA
    Lat. In Saxon law. A royal residence. Spelman.
  • VILLAGE
    Any small assemblage of houses for dwellings or business, or both, in the country, whether they are situated upon regularly laid out streets and alleys or not, constitutes a village. Hebert v. Laval le, 27 111. 448. In some states, this is the legal description of a class of municipal More...
  • VILLAIN
    An opprobrious epithet, implying great moral delinquency, and equiv-alent to knave, rascal, or scoundrel. The word is libelous. 1 Bos. A P. 831.
  • VELLANIS REGIS SUBTRACTIS REDUCINDAS
    A writ that lay for the bringing back of the king's bondmen, that hatf been carried away by others out of his manors whereto they belonged. Reg. Orig. 87.
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