Secure

To make certain of payment or performance; to assure, guarantee, or indemnify. A debtor who gives his creditor a lien upon some property by means of which the creditor may collect his demand, if the debtor fails personally to pay it, is said to secure him. Sometimes one who gives his own engagement to guarantee a payment or performance of an obligation by another is said to secure it. Secured: made certain of payment or performance, as by a lien given on propgiven additional to an obligation, debt, or duty, for the purpose of assuring payment or performance. Security is sometimes applied to the person who engages for payment or performance by another; but this is unadvisable; surety (5. v.) is the proper term for the person. Securities (plu.) is in use as a general term for written assurances for payment, of money; evidences of debt. A contract whereby a vendor of land agrees to execute a conveyance thereof as soon as the vendee " sed Ures the payment " of the purchase-money, means not when he pays it in money, but when he gives somethmg by means whereof payment may, at some future time, be procured or compelled.

Foot V. Webb, 59 Barb. 38.

A wife's separate property being sold, a part of the proceeds was loaned by her husband, who took the borrower's note, payable to the wife. It was held that this sum was " secured " in her name, within a statute protecting the wife's title to proceeds of her separate estate, if secured or invested in her name. Promissory notes are securities for money.

Jennings v. Davis, 31 Conn. 134.

The employment of the word securing, in section 8 of article 1 of the Constitution of the United States, — declaring that congress shall have power " to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries," — does not imply the protection of an acknowledged legal right. The acts of congress passed in the exercise of the power thus conferred create rights, rather than sanction previously existing ones.

Wheaton V. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 660.

Security embraces evary interest or right which is a charge upon specific property, including lien.

Storm v, Waddell, 2 Sand/. Gh. 494, 506.

Secured creditor

A creditor who holds some special pecuniary assurance of payment of his debt, such as a mortgage or lien. Security for costs. When the plaintiff in a suit resides out of the jurisdiction of the court in which his suit is pending, or lives abroad, and the defendant is apprehensive that the plaintiff, in the event of being defeated, will evade payment of the costs or expenses of the suit, it is usual for him to apply to the court to compel the plaintifi's attorney to give security for such payr ment, and which the court usually tion. This rtde exists very generally; but the cases in which security for costs may be required, and the manner in which it is to be enforced, and in which it is to be furnished, are regulated somewhat differently by the various statutes. Security for good behavior, or to keep the peace. One who has committed or threatened acts of disorder or violence, may be brought before a magistrate, and, on proper proofs, be required to enter into a bond or recognizance with sureties, that for a certain time he will be of good behavior, or will keep the peace, as towards the complainant and all other persons.