County
A Dictionary of Law · Henry Campbell Black · 1891
A Dictionary of Law
The name given to the principal subdivisions of the kingdom of England and of most of the states of the Ameriand judicial purposes. The etymology of the word shows it to have been the district anciently governed by a count or ear], In modern use, the word may denote either the territory murked off to form a county, or the citizens resident within such territory, taken collectively and considered as invested with political rights, or the county regarded as a municipal corporation possessing subordinate governmental powers, or an organized jural society invested with specific rights and duties.