privity
Americannoun
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private or secret knowledge.
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participation in the knowledge of something private or secret, especially as implying concurrence or consent.
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Law. the relation between privies.
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Obsolete. privacy.
noun
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a legally recognized relationship existing between two parties, such as that between lessor and lessee and between the parties to a contract
privity of estate
privity of contract
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secret knowledge that is shared
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of privity
1175–1225; Middle English privete, privite < Old French. See privy, -ity
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.
See Examples For:
“The privity between a man and his wife cannot be known,” the judge ruled.
From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2016
Even so, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in 1963 that Mrs. Goldberg could sue Lockheed, though not the altimeter maker, thus conspicuously dispensing with privity.
From Time Magazine Archive
Main reason: a spate of recent court decisions that have eroded the old doctrine of "privity" while enhancing the new doctrine of "strict liability."
From Time Magazine Archive
In the Goldberg case, relaxing the privity requirement also imposed "strict liability" on the manufacturer.
From Time Magazine Archive
It has been suggested, that our Commissioners signed this treaty without the privity of the Court of France.
From The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX by Sparks, Jared
We wear, in daylight, cloths around our privities; at night we cover ourselves with the skins of beasts.
From Time Magazine Archive
And there slept Saint John the evangelist upon the breast of our Lord Jesu Christ, and saw sleeping many heavenly privities.
From The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir
Take shepherd's purse, either boiled in any convenient liquor, or dried and beaten into a powder, and it will be an admirable remedy to stop them, this being especially appropriated to the privities.
And anon the child spake to her and comforted her, and said, “Mother, ne dismay thee nought, for God hath hid in thee his privities for the salvation of the world.”
From The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir
But yet there is a place that men clepe the school of God, where he was wont to teach his disciples, and told them the privities of heaven.
From The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir
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.
