Debent

I. In old English

I. They owe. Debet: he owes, he ought. Debet et detinet: he owes and withholds, words applied to an action of debt brought by one of the original contracting parties. If by or against an assignee, the original writ contained the word detinet alone. Debet et solet: he ought and has been used [to do], words in a writ of right, importing that the plaintiff sues for a thing now for the first time withheld; if he sued for a right of which bis ancestor was deprived, the writ contained the word debet alone, t. Debet.