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

Category: C

CHASTITY

Purity; continence. That virtue which prevents the unlawful intercourse of the sexes. Also the slate of purity or abstinence from unlawful sexual connection. People v. Brown, 71 Hun, 601, 24 N. Y.

CHEFE

In Anglo-Norman law. Were or weregild; the price of the head or person, (icapitis prctium.)

CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COMMON PLEAS

In England. The presiding judge in the court of common pleas, and afterwards in the common pleas division of the high court of justice, and one of the ex officio judges of

CHIPPINGAVEL

In old English law. A tax upon trade; a toll imposed upon traffic, or upon goods brought to a place to be sold.

CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS

Under the municipal organization of the state of New Jersey, each county has a board of officers, called by this name, composed of representatives from the cities and townships within its limits,

CIRCUIT COURTS

The name of a system of courts of the United States, invested with general original jurisdiction of such matters and causes as are of Federal cognizance, except the matters specially delegated to

CITATIO AD REASSUMENDAM CAUSAM

A summons to take up the cause. A process, in the civil law, which issued when one of the parties to a suit died before its determination, for the plaintiff against the

CIVIS

Lat. In the Roman law. A citizen ; as distinguished from incola, (an inhabitant;) origin or birth constituting the former, domicile the latter. Code, 10, 40, 7. And see U. S. v.

CLASSIFICATION

In the practice of the English chancery division, where there are several parties to an administration action, including those who have been served with notice of the decree or judgment, and it

CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

One certifying that no contagious or infectious disease exists, or certifying as to healthy conditions generally without exception or reservation

CLERICAL TONSURE

The having the head shaven, which was formerly peculiar to clerks, or persons in orders, and which the coifs worn by serjeants at law are supposed to have been introduced to conceal.

COADUNATIO

A uniting or combining together of persons; a conspiracy. 9 Coke, 56.

CODE

A collection or compendium of laws. A complete system of positive law, scientifically arranged, and promulgated by legislative authority. Johnson v. Harrison, 47 Minn. 575, 50 N. W. 923, 28 Am. St.

CO-EXECUTOR

One who is a joint executor with one or more others

CO-HEIR

One of several to whom an Inheritance descends.

COLXATIO SIGNORUM

In old English law. A comparison of marks or seals. A mode of testing the genuineness of a seal, by comparing it with another known to be genuine. Adams. See Bract, fol.

COLOR OF AUTHORITY

That semblance or presumption of authority sustaining the acts of a public officer which is derived from his apparent title to the office or from a writ or other process in his

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