Legal Term Dictionary

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  • ABBREVIATIONS
    Shortened conventional expressions, employed as substitutes for names, phrases, dates, and the like, for the saving of space, of time in transcribing, etc. Abbott. Abbreviationium ille numerus et sensus accipiendus est, ut concessio non sit inanis. In abbreviations, such number and sense is to be taken that the grant be More...
  • ABBREVIATORS
    In ecclesiastical law. Officers whose duty it is to assist in drawing up the pope's briefs, and reducing petitions into proper form to be converted into papal bulls. Bouvier.
  • ABBROCHMENT, OR ABBROACHMENT
    The act of forestalling a market by buying up at wholesale the merchandise intended to be sold there, for the purpose of selling it at retail. See FORESTALLING.
  • ABDICATION
    The act of a sovereign in renouncing and relinquishing his government or throne, so that either the throne is left entirely vacant or is filled by a successor appointed or elected beforehand. Also, where a magistrate or person in office voluntarily renounces or gives it up before the time of More...
  • ABDUCTION
    In criminal law. The offense of taking away a man's wife, child, or ward, by fraud and persuasion, or open violence. 3 Bl. Comm. 139-141; Humphrey v. Pope, 122 Cal. 253, 54 Pac. 847; State v. George, 93 N. C. 567; State v. Chisenhall, 106 N. C. 676, 11 S. More...
  • ABEARANCE
    Behavior; as a recognizance to be of good abearance signifies to be of good behavior. 4 Bl. Comm. 251, 256.
  • ABEREMURDER
    (From Sax. abere, apparent notorious; and mord, murder.) Plain or downright murder, as distinguished from the less heinous crime of manslaughter, or chance medley. It was declared a capital offense, without fine or commutation, by the laws of Canute, c. 93, and of Hen. I. c. 13. Spelman.
  • ABESSE
    Lat. In the civil law. To be absent; to be away from a place. Said of a person who was extra continentia urbis, (beyond the suburbs of the city.)
  • ABET
    In criminal law. To encourage, incite, or set another on to commit a crime. See ABETTOR. "Aid" and "abet" are nearly synonymous terms as generally used; but, strictly speaking, the former term does not imply guilty knowledge or felonious intent, whereas the word "abet" includes knowledge of the wrongful purpose More...
  • ABETTATOR
    L. Lat In old English law. An abettor. Fleta, lib. 2, c. 65, f 7. See ABETTOR.
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