assize
Americannoun
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Usually assizes a trial session, civil or criminal, held periodically in specific locations in England, usually by a judge of a superior court.
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an edict, ordinance, or enactment made at a session of a legislative assembly.
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an inquest before members of a jury or assessors; a judicial inquiry.
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an action, writ, or verdict of an assize.
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judgment.
the last assize; the great assize.
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a statute for the regulation and control of weights and measures or prices of general commodities in the market.
noun
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a sitting of a legislative assembly or administrative body
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an enactment or order of such an assembly
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English history a trial or judicial inquest, the writ instituting such inquest, or the verdict
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Scots law
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trial by jury
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another name for jury 1
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Etymology
Origin of assize
1250–1300; Middle English asise < Old French: a sitting, noun use of feminine of asis seated at (past participle of aseeir ), equivalent to a- a- 5 + -sis < Latin sēssum ( sed- stem of sedēre to sit 1 + -tus past participle suffix)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Divorce proceedings were fixed for 27 October 1936 at Ipswich assize court.
From The Guardian • Dec. 22, 2019
Last week an assize court jury in Kingston took only ten minutes to find Johnson not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.
From Time Magazine Archive
There can be no truer commentary on the “Tale of Gamelyn” or the “Geste of Robin Hood” than these formal assize rolls.
From Chaucer and His England by Coulton, G. G.
The reply of Wedderburn was pointed and brilliant, and as rabid as if he had been summing up against an ordinary criminal at an ordinary assize.
From Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume II (of 2) A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings by Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
"For the plaintiff," the foreman said, in answer to the question of the clerk of assize.
From Trevethlan: (Vol 2 of 3) A Cornish Story. by Watson, William Davy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
