> as lemmas

a1670 J. Hacket Scrinia Reserata (1693) i. 17 The Arch-Bishop sent for him two years before he was Batchelour of Divinity, and ex mero motu gave him the Advouzon of an Arch-Deaconry in Wales.

a1680 T. Goodwin Disc. Election iv. vii. 301 in Wks. (1683) II. iv In the first of Ephesians he is said to have purposed all in himself, Vers. 9. and 11. ex mero motu.

1761 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy IV. 42 The stranger ex mero motu had confessed he had been at the Promontory of Noses.

1819 H. Wheaton Rep. Supreme Court U.S. 4 683 The charter of Dartmouth College is not a contract contemplated by the constitution, because no valuable consideration passed to the king as an equivalent for the grant, it purporting to be granted ex mero motu.

1853 Southern Literary Messenger 19 711/2 We are really sorry to see him republish mero motu such nonsense.

1891 Mind 16 168 Their [sc. Indeterminists'] abstract or transcendental ego..is..imagined as free from Law, in the sense of law natural... How otherwise could it originate action ex nihilo and mero motu?

1911 Amer. Jrnl. Internat. Law 5 779 The court would have been authorized ex mero motu to revoke the grant.

1954 Federal Suppl. (U.S.) 120 590/2 I shall assume that mero motu any court including this one can exercise over a grand jury sitting in that court supervisory power to prevent the process of that grand jury from being used abusively.

1998 Federal Reporter 3rd Ser. 141 376/2 The ensuing..stipulation of dismissal thus constituted appellants' agreement, ex mero motu, to forego their appeal rights in relation to the October 26 judgment.