Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

Category: B

BLACK-MAIL

1. In one of its original meanings, this term denoted a tribute paid by English dwellers along the Scottish border to influential chieftains of Scotland, as a condition of securing immunity from

BLINKS

In old English law. Boughs broken down from trees and thrown in a way where deer are likely to pass. Jacob.

BOARDING-HOUSE

A boarding-house is not in common parlance, or in legal meaning, every private house where one or more boarders are kept occasionally only and upon special considerations. But it is a quasi

BOILARY

Water arising from a salt well belonging to a person who is not the owner of the soil.

BONA FIDE PURCHASER

A purchaser for a valuable consideration paid or parted with in the belief that the vendor had a right to sell, and without any suspicious circumstances to put him on inquiry. Merritt

BOOK OF ORIGINAL ENTRIES

A book in which a merchant keeps his accounts generally and enters therein from day to day a record of his transactions. McKnight v. Newell, 207 Pa. 662, 57 Atl. 39. A

BORDER WARRANT

A process granted by a judge ordinary, on either side of the border between England and Scotland, for arresting the person or effects of a person living on the opposite side, until

BOROUGH SESSIONS

Courts of limited criminal jurisdiction, established in English boroughs under the municipal corporations act.

BOUND BAILIFFS

In English law. Sheriffs’ officers are so called, from their being usually bound to the sheriff in an obligation with sureties, for the due execution of their office. 1 Bl. Comm. 345,

BREAKING

Forcibly separating, parting, disintegrating, or piercing any solid substance. In the law as to housebreaking and burglary, it means the tearing away or removal of any part of a house or of

BREVE NOMINATNM

A named writ. A writ stating the circumstances or details of the cause of action, with the time, place, and demand, very particularly.

BREVIA SELECTA

Choice or selected writs or processes. Often abbreviated to Brev. Sel.

BRIEF PAPAL

In ecclesiastical law. The pope’s letter upon matters of discipline.

BROTHEL

A bawdy-house; a house of ill fame; a common habitation of prostitutes.

BUILDING LIEN

The statutory lien of a material-man or contractor for the erection of a building. Lumber Co. v. Holt, GO Neb. SO, 82 N. W. 112, S3 Am. St. Rep. 512; June v.

BURGBOTE

In old English law. A term applied to a contribution towards the repair of castles or walls of defense, or of a borough.

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.

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