ex officioadv.adj.n.

1532 C. St. German Treat. Div. Spirytualtie & Temporaltie f. 16^v Diuers sutes..haue ben taken in the spiritual courtes of office, that is called in latyn, ex officio: so that the partyes haue not knowen who hath accused them.

1533 T. More Apol. xl, in Wks. 907/2 The conuenting of heretikes ex officio.

1607 J. Cowell Interpreter sig. Zz2/2 A thing found by Inquisition made ex officio.

1610 Bp. J. Hall Common Apol. against Brownists §40 No Enquiry Ex officio may be thus made.

1637 E. Rossingham Let. 4 Jan. in R. F. Williams Birch's Court & Times Charles I (1848) (modernized text) II. 260 In one of my last letters I wrote, that Mr. Burton had refused to take the oath ex officio. I hear since that he hath..been suspended from..his ministry.

1661 Act 13 Chas. II st. 1, c. 12 The oath usually called the oath ex officio, or any other oath whereby such person..may be charged or compelled to confess or accuse, or to purge him or herself of any criminal matter or thing, whereby he or she may be liable to any censure or punishment.

1712 H. Prideaux Direct. Church-wardens (ed. 4) 94 He may call them ex Officio to Account.

1729 G. Jacob New Law-dict. sig. Ccc^v/1 When the Attorney General exhibits an Information, he does it ex Officio.

1769 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. IV. xxiii. 304 Informations, that are exhibited in the name of the king alone, are..of two kinds: first those which are truly and properly his own suits, and filed ex officio by his own immediate officer, the attorney general.

1769 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. IV. [Index] Ex officio informations.

1797 T. E. Tomlins Jacob's Law-dict. (new ed.) (at cited word) Ex Officio Informations, informations at the suit of the King, filed by the Attorney-General, as by virtue of his office.

1812 Examiner 23 Aug. 529/1 He does not strike at the Ex-officio Information itself.

1886 Oxf. Univ. Cal. 18 The Proctors are ex-officio members of each of the under-mentioned Committees.

1886 Athenæum 24 July 111/2 It was enacted that any one in Great Britain or Wales ‘who is or shall be a Popish Recusant or Papist, or is or shall be educated in the Popish Religion, or whose parent or parents shall be a Papist or Papists’, shall on or before January 20th, 1716, take the usual ex officio oath.

1936 M. H. Maguire in Essays in Hist. & Pol. Theory in Honor of C. H. McIlwain 200 Otho's emphasis fell on the point of answering truly every question that might be asked... It is this specialized form of the oath of calumny which becomes practically equivalent to the oath ex officio.

1938 Act 1 & 2 Geo. VI c. xliii. §12 Criminal informations, other than informations filed ex officio by His Majesty's Attorney-General, are hereby abolished.

1970 M. Stocks My Commonplace Book 106 A Proctor has ex-officio the right to move resolutions in the Hebdomadal Council.

1970 M. Stocks My Commonplace Book 203 And as Principal of a constituent college of London University I was ex-officio a member of its Senate and of its Collegiate Council, as well as of many ad hoc appointments committees.

1817 Black Dwarf I. 329 Their cabinet deliberations On soldiers' caps, or wars of nations, On ex-officios, new suspensions.

1886 Lett. from Donegal 13 The ex-officios go for laying out most on the great..arterial roads.

1893 Westm. Gaz. 22 Dec. 2/2 The first [principle] is that the Local Government shall appoint ex-officios, the second is that the Guardians themselves shall co-opt ex-officios.

1847 in J. Craig New Universal Dict.