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

Category: D

DISTRAINT

Seizure; the act of distraining or making a distress.

DIVERSO INTUITU

Lat. With a different vtow, purpose, or design; in a differentview or point of view; by a different course or process. 1 W. Bl. 89; 4 Kent, Comm. 211, note.

DIVORCE A MENSA ET TLIORO

A divorce from table and bed, or from bed and board. Apartial or qualified divorce, by which the parties are separated and forbidden to live orcohabit together, without affecting the marriage itself.

DOCTOR AND STUDENT

The title of a work written by St. Germain in the reign ofHenry VIII. in which many principles of the common law are discussed iu a popularmanner. It is in the form

DOMICELLA

In old English law. A damsel. Fleta, lib. 1, c. 20,

DOMNS CONVERSORUM

An ancient house built or appointed by King Henry III. for suchJews as were converted to the Christian faith; but King Edward III., who expelled theJews from the kingdom, deputed the place

DONUM

Lat. In the civil law. A gift; a free gift Calvin. Distinguished from munus. Dig. 50, 16, 194.

DOTE

n. In Spanish law. The marriage portion of a wife. White, New Recop. b. 1,tit. 6, c. 1. The property which the wife gives to the husband on account of marriage, orfor

DOUBLE USE

In patent law. An application of a principle or process, previously known and applied, to some new use, but which does not lead to a new result or the production of a

DOWER BY CUSTOM

A kind of dower in England, regulated by custom, where the quantity allowed the wife differed from theproportion of the common law; as that the wife should have half the husband’s lands;or,

DRAIN

v. To make dry; to draw off water; to rid land of its superfluous moisture byadapting or improving natural watercourses and supplementing them, when necessary,by artificial ditches. People v. Parks, 58 Cal.

DRIFT-STUFF

This term signifies, not goods which are the subject of salvage, but matters floating at random, without any known or discoverable ownership, which. If cast ashore, will probably never be reclaimed, but

DROIT DE SUITE

The right of a creditor to pursue the debtor’s property into the hands of third persons for the enforcement of his claim.

DRU

A thicket of wood in a valley. Domesday.

DUBITAVIT

Doubted. Vaughan, C. J., dubitavit. Freem. 150.

DUELLUM

The trial by battel or judicial combat. See BATTEL.

DUNA

In old records. A bank of earth cast up; the side of a ditch. Cowell.

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