Denizen

In English law

A person who, being an alien barn, has obtained, ex donatione regis, letters patent to make him an English subject,—a high and incommunicable branch of the royal prerogative. A denizen is in a kind of middle state between an alien and a natural-born subject, and partakes of the status of both of these.

1 BL Comm. 374 ; 7 Coke, 6.

The term is used to signify a person who, being an alien by birth, has obtained letters patent making him an English subject The king may denize, but not naturalize, a man ; the latter requiring the consent of parliament, as under the naturalization act, 1870, (33 & 34 Viet, c. 14.) A denizen holds a position midway between an alien and a nafural-bom or naturalized subject, being able to take lands by purchase or devise, (which an alien could not until 1870 dot) but not able to take lands by descent, (which a natural-bom or naturalized subject may dot) Brown. The word is also used in this sense in South Carolina.

See McClenaghan v. Mo-Clenaghan, 1 Strob. Eq. (S. C.) 319, 47 Ana. Dec. 532.

A denizen, in the primary, but obsolete, sense of the word, is a natural-born subject of a country.

Co. Litt. 129a.