Black's Law Dictionary

A wrongful act intentionally done without legal justification or excuse ; an unlawful act done wilfully or purposely to injure another. Bowers v. State, 24 Tex. App. 542, 7 S. W. 2

An arrest made willfully and without probable cause,' but in the course of a regular proceeding.

An injury committed against a person at the prompting of malice or hatred towards him, or done spitefully or wantonly. State v. Huegin, 110 Wis. 189, 85 N. W. 1046, 62 In R. A. 700

A term applied to the willful destruction of personal property, from actual ill will or resentment towards its owner or possessor. People v. Petheram, 64 Mich. 252, 3l N. W. 188; F

A judicial proceeding instituted against a person out of the prosecutor's malice and ill will, with the intention of injuring him, without probable cause to sustain it, the process

To malign or slander; also to maim.

To feign sickness or any physical disablement or mental lapse or derangement, especially for the purpose of escaping the performance of a task, duty or work.

Lat Actual evil design; express malice. —Malitia praecogitata. Malice aforethought.

Malice is sour ; it is the quality of a bad mind. 2 Bulst. 49.

Malice aforethought.

Malice supplies [the want of] age. Dyer, 104b; Broom, Max. 316.

The wicked or malicious designs of men must be thwarted. 4 Coke, 15b.

In old European law. A court of the higher kind in which the more important business of the county was dispatched by the count or earl. Spelman. A public national assembly.

Lat. With an evil mind; with a bad purpose or wrongful intention; with malice.

Lat. In spite; unwillingly.

Lat. In an evil sense or meaning; with an evil signification.

As applied to physicians and surgeons, this term means, generally, professional misconduct towards a patient which is considered reprehensible either because immoral in itself or b

A substance produced from barley or other grain by a process of steeping in water until germination begins and then drying in a kiln, thus converting the starch into saccharine mat

A general term including all alcoholic beverages prepared essentially by the fermentation of an infusion of malt (as distinguished from such liquors as are produced by the process

A quern or malt-mill.

Fr. In old French law. A term said to have arisen from the usurious gains of the Jews and Lombards in their management of the public revenue. Steph. Leet 372.

In reference to the treatment of his patient by a surgeon, this term signifies improper or unskillful treatment; it may result either from ignorance, neglect or willfulness; but th

A certain payment for making malt. Somner.

An excise duty upon malt in England. 1 Bl. Comm. 313; 2 Steph. Comm. 581.

adj. Lat. Wrong; evil; wicked reprehensible. —Malum in se. A wrong in itself; an act or case involving illegality from the very nature of the transaction, upon principles of natura

A wrong in itself; an act or case involving illegality from the very nature of the transaction, upon principles of natural, moral, and public law. Story, Ag. § 346. An act is said

3 Inst. Proem. Evll has not an efficient, but a deficient, cause.

Wickedness ls not presumed. Branch, Princ.; 4 Coke, 72a.

A wrong prohibited; a thing which is wrong because prohibited; an act which is not inherently immoral, but becomes so because its commission is expressly forbidden by positive law;

The more common an evil is, the worse It is. Branch, Princ.

A bad or invalid custom is [ought] to be abolished. Litt § 212; Co. Litt 141; 1 Bl. Comm. 76; Broom, Max.' 921.

In old English law. Ill will; crimes and misdemeanors; malicious practices. Cowell.

A warlike engine to batter and beat down walls.

L. Fr. Such as used to pack juries, by the nomination of either party in a cause or other practice. Cowell.

In French law. This word is applied to all grave and punishable faults committed in the exercise of a charge or commission, (office,) such as corruption, exaction, concussion, larc

A human being. A person of the male sex. A male of the human species above the age of puberty. In feudal law. A vassal; a tenant or feudatory. The Anglo-Saxon relation of lord and

Chains for the hands; shackles.

To conduct; to carry on; to direct the concerns of a business or establishment. Generally applied to affairs that are somewhat complicated and that involve skill and judgment. Com.

Members of the houses of parliament appointed to represent each house at a conference between the two houses. It is an ancient rule that the number of commons named for a conferenc

A person who is invested with general power, involving the exercise of judgment and discretion, as distinguished from an ordinary agent or employe, who acts in an inferior capacity

The managing owner of a ship is one of several co-owners, to whom the others, or those of them who join in the adventure, have delegated the management of the ship. He has authorit

A mansion-house or dwelling-place. Cowell.

Men of a mean condition or of the lowest degree,

In Saxon law. A compensation or recompense for homicide, particularly due to the lord for kiliing his man or vassal, the amount of which was regulated by that of the were.

A square piece of gold coin, commonly valued at thirty pence, Cowell.

Lat. In Roman law. A purchaser; one who took the article sold in his hand; a formality observed in certain sales. Calvin. A farmer of the public taxes.

A bribe; a present from the donor's own hand.

Lat. In Roman law. To sell, alienate or make over to another; to sell with certain formalities; to sell a person; one of the forms observed in the process of emancipation.

To enslave; to bind; to tie.

Lat. In Roman law. A certain ceremony or formal process anciently required to be performed, to perfect the sale or conveyance of res mancipi, (land, houses, slaves, horses or cattl

Lat. In Roman law. Co.rtain classes of things which could not be aliened or transferred except by means of a certain formal ceremony of conveyance calied "mancipatio," '(q. vt) The

Lat. In Roman law. The momentary condition in which a filius, etc., might be when in course of emancipation from the potestas, and before that emancipation was absolutely complete.

A clerk of the kitchen or caterer, especially in colleges. Cowell.

In Spanish law. An obligation is said to be mamcomunal when one person assumes the contract or debt of another, and makes himself liable to pay or fulfill it Schm. Civll Law, 120.

In Spanish law. Commission; authority or power of attorney. A contract of good faith, by which one person commits to the gratuitous charge of another his affairs, and the latter ac

Lat. We command. This is the name of a writ (formerly a high prerogative writ) which issues from a court of superior jurisdiction, and is directed to a private or municipal corpora

Lat In the civil law. The employing party in a contract of mandate. One who gives a thing in charge to another; one who requires, requests or employs another to do some act for him

In French and Scotch law. The employing party in the contract of mandatum or mandate. Story, Bailm. § 138.

Fr. In French law. A person employed by another to do some act for him; a mandatary.

Lawful commands receive a strict interpretation, but unlawful commands a broad and extended one. Bac. Max. reg. 16.

A mandatary cannot exceed the llmite assigned him. Jenk. Cent 53.

In practice. A judicial command or precept proceeding from a court or judicial officer, directing the proper officer to enforce a judgment, sentence or decree. Seaman v. Clarke, 60

In Spanish law. The contract of mandate. Escriche.

Loaves of bread given to the poor upon Maundy Thurs day.

The person employing another to perform a mandate,

Containing a command; preceptive; imperative; peremptory. A provision in a statute is mandatory when disobedience to it will make the act done under the statute absolutely void; if

One which (1) commands the defendant to do some positive act or particular thing; (2) prohibits him from refusing (or persisting in a refusal) to do or permit some act to which the

See Injunction.

Lat. In the civil law. The contract of mandate, (q. v.)

(I have commanded or made my mandate to the bailiff.) In English practice. The return made by a sheriff, where the bailiff of a liberty has the execution of a writ, that he has com

Tenants. Obsolete. Cowell.

In Spanish law. Manner or mode. Las Partidas, pt. 4, tit 4, 1. 2.

In old English law. A manor.

Co. Litt. 58. A manor is so called from manendo, according to its excellence, a seat, great, fixed, and firm.

In old English law. To buy in a market.

A warlike instrument for casting stones against the walls of a castle. Cowell.

In feudal law. A term denoting the ceremony of doing homage by the vassal to his lord. The formula used was, "Devento vester homo," I become your man. 2 Bl. Comm. 54. To arrive at

See Insanity.

A form of insanity characterized by alternating periods of high maniacal excitement and of depressed and stuprous conditions in the nature of or resembling melancholia, often occur

A form of insanity characterized by a morbid state of religious feeling. Ekin v. McCracken, 11 Phila. (Pat) 540.

In maritime law. A sea-letter; a written document required to be carried by merchant vessels, containing an account of the cargo, with other particulars, for the facility of the cu

7 Coke, 40. Things manifest do not require proof.

A formal written declaration, promulgated by a prince or by the executive authority of a state or nation, proclaiming its reasons and motives for declaring a war, or for any other

In canon law. A handkerchief, which the priest always had in his left hand. Blount.

The race or species of human beings. In law, females, as well as males, may be included under this term. Fortesc. 91.

This is a word of large signification, but cannot exceed the subject to which it belongs. The incident cannot be extended beyond its principal. Wella v. Bain, 75 Pa. 39, 54, 15 Am.

Formal words introduced at the conclusion of a traverse. Their object is to put the party whose pleading is traversed not only to the proof that the matter of fact denied is, in it

A day's work of a man. Cowell. A summoning to court. Spelman.

To cite any person to appear in court and stand in judgment there. It is different from bannire; tor, though both of them are citations, this is by the adverse party, and that is b

In old English law. Goods .taken in the hands of an apprehended thief. The same as "mainour," (q. v.)

A horse, Cowell.

See Men of Straw.

A house, dwelling, seat, or residence. In English law, the manor was originally a tract of land granted out by the king to a lord or other great person, in fee. It was otherwise ca

In Saxon law. A murderer.

In Scotch law. The service of a man or vassal. A bond of manrent was an instrument by which a person, in order to securethe protection of some powerful lord, bound himself to such

In old English law. A habitation or dwelling, generally with land attached. Spelman. A residence or dwelling-house for thepar-lah priest; a parsonage or vicarage house. Cowell. Sti

A bastard. Cowell.

A dwelling-house or place of residence, including its appurtenant outbuildings. Thompson v. People, 3 Parker, Cr. R. (N. Y.) 214; Comm. v. Pennock, 3 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 199; Armour v

In the law of burglary, eta, any species of dwelling-house. 3 Inst. 64.

See Mansion.