Black's Law Dictionary

One entirely destitute of reason; is qui omnino desipit. Ersk. Inst. 1, 7, 48.

An idiot or fool. Bract. foL 420b. Foolish; absurd; indiscreet; or ill considered. Fatuum judicium, a foolish judgment or verdict. Applied to the verdict of a jury which, though fa

In French law, and in Louisiana. A district or part of a town adjoining the principal city; a suburb. See City Council of Lafayette v. Holland, 18 La. 286.

(Jaws of the land.) Narrow headlands and promontories, inclosing a portion or arm of the sea within them. 1 Kent, Comm. 367, and note; Hale, De Jure Mar. 10; The Harriet, 1 Story,

In the civil law. Negligence; want of care. An improper act or omission, injurious to another, and transpiring through negligence, rashness or ignoranco. There are in law three deg

In old English law. A favorer or supporter of others; an abettor. Cowell; Jacob. A partisan. One who encouraged resistance to the execution of process. In Spanish law. Accomplice;

In old English law. False; counterfeit. Faux action, a false action. Litt. § 688. Faux money, counterfeit money. St. Westm. 1, c. 15. Faux pegs, false weights. Britt, c. 20. Faux s

Bias; partiality; lenity; prejudice. See Challenge.

Jenk. Cent 94. Things favorably considered in law are the treasury, dower, Ilfe, liberty.

The condition of the defendant must be favored, rather than that of the plaintiff. In other words, melior est conditio defendentis. Dig. 50, 17, 125; Broom, Max. 715.

Co. Litt. 289. Executions are preferred to all other processes whatever.

Jenk. Cent. 186. Favors are to be enlarged; things hatefni restrained.

Nautical or maritime interest. An extraordinary rate of interest agreed to be paid for the loan of money on the hazard of a voyage; sometimes calied "usura mantma." Dig. 22, 2; Cod

In old English law. The portion brought by a wife to her husband, and which reverted to a widow, in case the heir of her deceased husband refused his consent to her second marriage

In international law. A treaty ; a league; a compact.

Faithful. Tenants by knight service swore to their lords to be feal and leal; i. e., faithful and loyal.

A right in Scotland, similar to the right of turbary in England, for fuel, etc.

In feudal law. Fidelity; allegiance to the feudal lord of the manor; the feudal obligation resting upon the tenant or vassal by which he was bound to be faithful and true to his lo

Apprehension of harm. Apprehension of harm or punishment, as exhibited by outward and visible marks of emotion. An evidence of guilt in certain cases. See Burrill, Circ. Ev. 476.

A doing; the doing of an act. See Malfeasance; Misfeasance; Non-xeasance. A making; the making of an indenture, release, or obligation. Litt. § 371; Dyer, (Fr. Ed.) 56b. The making

Doing or making, as, in the term "damage feasant," (doing damage or injury,) spoken of cattle straying upon another's land.

Doer; maker. Feasors del estatute, makers of the statute. Dyer, 3b. Also used in the compound term, "tort-feasor," one who commits or is guilty of a tort

Certain established festivals or holidays in the ecclesiastical calendar. These days were anciently used as the dates of legal instruments, and in England the quarter-days, for pay

Among the ancient Romans, that order of priests who discharged the duties of ambassadors. Subsequently their duties appear to have related more particularly to the declaring war an

The nearest approach to a System of international law known to the ancient world. It was a branch of Roman Jurisprudence, concerned with embassies, declarations of war, and treatie

In constitutional law. A term commonly used to express a league or compact between two or more states. In American law. Belonging to the general government or union of the states.

The courts of the United States. See Courts of the Untted States.

The -system of government administered in a state formed by the union or confederation of several independent or quasi independent states; also the composite state so formed. In st

See Federal.

1. A freehold estate in lands, held of a superior lord, as a reward for services, and on condition of rendering some service in return for it. The true meaning of the word "fee" Is

A schedule of the fees to be charged by clerks of courts, sheriffs, or other officers, for each particular service in the line of their duties.

To lend additional support; to strengthen ex post facto. "The interest when it accrues feeds the estoppel." Christmas v. Oliver, 5 Mood. & R. 202.

Damages sustained by and awarded to an abutting owner of real property occasioned by the construction and operation of an elevated railroad in a city street, are so called, because

An estate where lands are given to a man and his wife, and the heirs of their bodies.

This is a species of tenure, where land is held of another in perpetuity at a yearly rent, without fealty, homage or other services than such as are specially comprised In the feof

A rent charge issuing out of an estate in fee; a perpetual rent reserved on a conveyance of land in fee simple.

In English law. A freehold estate of inheritance, absolute and unqualified. It stands at the head of estates as the highest in dignity and the most ample in extent; since every oth

An estate tail; an estate of inheritance given to a man and the heirs of his body or limited to certain classes of particular heirs. It corresponds to the feudum talliatum of the f

In old English law. A thief caught white escaping with the stolen goods in his possession. Spelman.

The name given to certain secret tribunals which flourished in Germany from the end of the twelfth century to the middle of the sixteenth, usurping many of the functions of the gov

Fictitious; pretended; supposititious; simulated. —Feigned accomplice. One who pretends to consult and act with others in the planning or commission of a crime, but only for the pu

One who pretends to consult and act with others in the planning or commission of a crime, but only for the purpose of discovering their plans and confederates and securing evidence

In practice. An action brought on a pretended right, when the plaintiff has no true cause of action, for some illegal purpose. In a feigned action the words of the writ are true. I

Simulated maladies. Diseases are generally feigned from one of three causes,—fear, shame, or the hope of gain.

An issue made up by the direction of a court of equity, (or by consent of parties,) and sent to a common-law court, for the purpose of obtaining the verdict of a jury on some dispu

In Saxon law. One bound for another by oath; a sworn brother. A friend bound in the decennary for the good behavior of another. One who took the place of the deceased. Thus, if a p

A field; in composition, wild. Blount

In Fr. Faithful. See Feal.

See Sodomy.

A companion; one with whom we consort; one joined with another in some legal status or relation; a member of a college or corporate body.

A co-heir; partner of the same inheritance.

The decided weight of authority is to the effect that all who serve the same master, work under the same control, derive authority and compensation from the same common source, and

A felon of himself; a suicide or murderer of himself. One who deliberately and intentionally puts an end to hls own life, or who commits seme unlawful or malicious act which result

One who has committed felony; one convicted of felony.

Felony. The act or offense by which a vassal forfeited his fee. Spelman ; Calvin. Per feloniam, with a criminal intention. Co. Litt. 391.

Co. Litt. 391. Felony, by force of the term, signifies any capital crime perpetrated with a malignant mind.

3 Inst. 15. Felony is implied in every treason.

Feloniously. Anciently an indispensable word in indictments for felony, and classed by Lord Coke among those voces artis (words of art) which cannot be expressed by any periphrasis

Malignant; malicious; done with intent to commit a crime; having the grade or quality of a felony. People v. Moore, 37 Hun (N. Y.) 93; Aikman v. Com., 18 S. W. 938, 13 Ky. Law Rep.

Such an assault upon the person as, if consummated, would subject the party making it, upon conviction, to the punishment of a felony, that is, to imprisonment in the penitentiary.

In criminal law. The offense of killing a human creature, of any age or sex, without justification or excuse. There are two degrees of this offense, manslaughter and murder. 4 Bl.

With a felonious intent; with the intention of committing a crime. An indispensable word in modern indictments for felony, as felonice was in the Latin forms. 4 Bl. Comm. 307; Stat

In English law. This term meant originally the state of having forfeited lands and goods to the crown upon conviction for cortain offenses, and then, by transition, any offense upo

The stafute 33 & 34 Viet. c. 23, abolishing forfeitures for felony, and sanctioning the appointment of interim curators and administrators of the property of felons. Mozley & Whitl

See Compounding Felony.

The sex which conceives and gives birth to young. Also a member of such sex. The term is generic, but may have the specific meaning of "woman," if so indicated by the context. Stat

L. Fr. A woman. In the phrase "baron et feme" (q. v.) the word has the sense of "wife." —Feme covert. A married woman. Generally used in reference to the legni disabilities of a ma

A married woman. Generally used in reference to the legni disabilities of a married woman, as compared with the condition of a feme sole. Hoker v. Boggs, 63 111. 161

A wife de Jacto.

A single woman, including those who have been married, but whose marriage has been dissolved by death or divorce, and, for most purposes, those women who are judicially separated f

In English law. A married woman, who, by the custom of London, trades on her own account, independently of her husband; so called because, with respect to her trading, she is the s

The killing of a woman. Wharton.

In forest law. The fawning of deer; the fawning season. Spelman.

n. A hedge, structure or partition, erected for the purpose of inclosing a piece of land or to divide a piece of land into distinct portions or to separate two contiguous estates.

Usury; the gain of interest; the practice of increasing money by lending.

In Saxon law. A tax or imposition, exacted for the repelling of enemies.

A champion, hero, giant. This word, in the plural, is generally used to signify invaders or foreign spollers. The modern meaning of "fenlan" is a member of an organization of perso

In old English law. A period of time, occurring in the middle of summer, during which it was unlawful to hunt deer in the forest, that being their fawning season. Probably so calle

The same as feud or fief.

Belonging to a fee or fend; feudal. More commonly used by the old writers than feudal.

Fidelity or fealty. Cowell. See Fealty.

See Feudal System.

The customs of feuds. The name of a compllation of feudal laws and customs made at Milan in the twelfth century. It is the most ancient work on the subject, and was always regarded

An officer of the court of wards, appointed by the master of that court, under 32 Hen. VIII. c. 26, whose business it was to be present with the escheator in every county at the fi

In feudal law. The grantee of a food, feud or fee; the vassal or tenant who held his estate by feudal service. Termes de la Lev. Blackstone uses "feudatory." 2 Bl. Comm. 46.

In old English law. Fee-farm, (q. v.)

The lessee of a fee-farm.

This word (meaning a feud or fee) is the one most commonly used by the older English law-writers, though Its equivalent, "feudum," is usedgenerally by the more modern writers and b

A feud which devolved upon a vassal from his intestate ancestor.

Co. Litt. 1. A fee is that which any one holds from whatever cause, whether tenement or rent.

A fief for which the tenant did guard and owed homage. Spelman.

A feud acquired by a vassal himself.

A new fee held with the qualities and incidents of an ancient one. 2 Bl. Comm. 212.

Litt. § 1. A fee-simple, so called because fee is the same as inheritance, and simple is the same as lawful or pure; and thus fee-simple is the same as a lawful inheritance, or pur

I.e., her editas in quandam certitudinem limitata. Litt. § 13. Fee-tail, i. e., an inheritance limited in a definite descent.

A feoffment 2 BL Comin. 310.

To enfeoff; to bestow a fee. The bestower was called "feoffator," and the grantee or feoffee, "feoffatus."

In old English law. A feoffer; one who gives or bestows a fee; one who makes a feoffment Bract, fols. 12b, 81.

In old English law. A feoffee; one to whom a fee is givn or a feoffment made. Bract fols. 17b, 44b.

He to whom a fee is conveyed. Litt. § 1; 2 Bl. Comm. 20. —Feoffee to uses. A person to whom land was conveyed for the use of a third party. The latter was called "cestui que use."