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

Category: B

BONDSMAN

A surety; one who has entered into a bond as surety. The word seems to apply especially to the sureties upon the bonds of officers, trustees, etc., while tail should be reserved

BOOK

1. A general designation applied to any literary composition which is printed, but appropriately to a printed composition bound in a volume. Scoville v. Toland, 21 Fed. Cas. 864. 2. A bound

BORD

An old Saxon word, signifying a cottage; a house; a table.

BOROUGH

In English law. A town, a walled town. Co. Litt. 10S6. A town of note or importance; a fortified town. Cowell. An ancient town. Litt. 1C4. A corporate town that is not

BOUCHE FR

The mouth. An allowance of provision. Avoir bouche d court; to have an allowance at court; to be in ordinary at court; to have meat and drink scot- free there. Blount; Cowell.

BOVATA TERRA

As much land as one ox can cultivate. Said by some to be thirteen, by others eighteen, acres in extent Skene; Spelman; Co. Litt 5a.

BREACH OF DUTY

In a general sense, any violation or omission of a legal or moral duty. More particularly, the neglect or failure to fulfill in a just and proper manner the duties of an

BRETTS AND SCOTTS, LAWS OF THE

A code or system of laws in use among the Celtic tribes of Scotland down to the beginning of the fourteenth century, and then abolished by Edward I. of England.

BREVIA ANTICIPAN- TIA

At common law. Anticipating or preventive writs. Six were included in this category, viz.: Writ of mesne; warrantia chartce; monstraverunt; audita querela; curia clauden- da; and ne injuste vexes. Peters v. Linen-

BRIDGE

A structure erected over a river, creek, stream, ditch, ravine, or other place, to facilitate the passage thereof; including by the term both arches and abutments. Bridge Co. v. Railroad Co., 17

BROCARIUS, BROCATOR

In old English and Scotch law. A broker; a middleman between buyer and seller; the agent of both transacting parties. Bell; Cowell.

BUGGERY

A carnal copulation against nature; and this is either by the confusion of species,

BUREAUCRACY

A system in which the business of government is carried on in departments, each under the control of a chief, in contradistinction from a system in which the officers of government have

BY GOD AND MY COUNTRY

In old English criminal practice. The established formula of reply by a prisoner, when arraigned at the bar, to the question, “Culprit, how wilt thou be tried?”

BETTERMENT ACTS

Statutes which provide that a bona fide occupant of real estate making lasting improvements in good faith shall have a lien upon the estate recovered by the real owner to the extent

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