Certiorari

— I. I. To be made more certain;

— to be certified or more distinctly informed; a writ issued by a superior to an inferior court to remove a cause, either civil or criminal, before trial or judgment; a process auxilijiry to a writ of error to obtain a complete return where the entire record has not been certified; a writ issued in place of a writ of error for a review of a judgment of an inferior tribunal which acts summarily or not according to the course of the common law; a writ used as a mode of appeal from the judgments of courts not of record.