chirograph

English

Etymology

Ancient Greek χειρόγραφος (kheirógraphos, “written with the hand”) χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write”).

Noun

chirograph (plural chirographs)

  1. (law, historical) A kind of mediaeval document written in duplicate (or more) on a single piece of parchment, then cut across a single word, so that each holder of a portion can prove it matches the others.
  2. (law, historical) A papal decree whose circulation, unlike an encyclical, is limited to the Roman curia.
  3. (obsolete) The last part of a fine of land; the "foot of the fine".
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Bouvier to this entry?)

See also

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for chirograph in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.