A legal or judicial inquiry to ascertain or decide a matter of fact, esp. one made by a jury in a civil or criminal case. Formerly, a general term…

Originally applied to: All legal proceedings of the nature of inquests or recognitions, fiscal, civil, or criminal.

A judicial or official investigation or inquiry, an inquest; also the document recording such inquiry and its result.

An official or judicial inquiry; = inquest, n. 1. Now historical and rare.

Judicial inquiry into the guilt or innocence of an accused person; an instance of this; a hearing, a trial. Obsolete except as merged with sense 1.

an inquiry carried out by a judicial body or in accordance with judicial process, or (esp. in later use) presided over by a judge.

Any of various local boards of officials empowered to settle disputes, esp. between an individual and a government department, to adjudicate on fair…