Unsound Mind

Defined in 5 dictionaries — Cyclopedic (1922), Ballentine's (1916), Bouvier (1914), Black's (1910), Abbott (1879)

The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary

Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922

or UNSOUND MEMory. These words have been adopted in several statutes, and sometimes indiscriminately used, to signify not only "lunacy," which is periodical madness, but also a permanent adventitious insanity^ as distinguished from idiocy. 1 Ridg. Pari. Gas. 518; 3 Atk. 171. The term "unsound mind" seems to have been used in those statutes in the same sense as "insane;" but they have been said to import that the party was in some such sta!te as was contradistinguished from idiocy and from lunacy, and yet such as made him a proper subject of a commission to inquire of idiocy and lunacy. Shelf. Lun. 5; Ray, Med. Jur. prel. § 8; 8 Ves. 66; 12 Ves. 447; 19 Ves. 286; 1 Beck, Med. Jur. 573; Cooper, Ch. Gas. 108; 2 Madd. Chanc. Prac. 731, 732.

Ballentine's Law Dictionary

James A. Ballentine · 1916

See Sound mind.

Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia

John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914

UNSOUND MEMORY. See Insanity. U NSO U N D N ESS- See Soundness.

Black's Law Dictionary

Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910

A person of unsound mind is an adult who from infirmity of mind is incapable of managing himself or his affairs. The term, therefore, includes insane persons, idiots, and imbeciles. Sweet See Insanity. And see Cheney v. Price, 90 Hun, 238, 37 N. Y. Supp. 117; In re Black's Esitate, 1 Myr. Prob. (Cal.) 24; In re Mason, 3 Edw. Ch. (N. Y.) 380; Hart v. Miller, 29 Ind. App. 222, 64 N. E. 239; In re Lindsley, 44 N. J. Eq. 564, 15 Atl. 1, 6 Am. St. Rep. 913; Dennett v. Dennett, 44 N. H. 531, 84 Am. Dec. 07; Edwards v. Davenport (C. C.) 20 Fed. 758; Witte v. Gllbert, 10 Neb. 539, 7 N. W. 288; Stewart v. Lispenard, 26 Wend. (N. Y.) 300.

Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence

Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879

According to large the scope of that proceeding to a class of persons who could not be pronounced idiots or lunatics according to old standards, yet were deemed proper objects of legal tutelage, by reason of mental incapacity. But he says the authorities do not concur in assigning any precise meaning to the term, as designating a fixed, determinable degree of impairment. Ray Med. Jut. Ins. 6.