writ1
/rɪt
/noun
1A form of written command in the name of a court or other legal authority to act, or abstain from acting, in a particular way: the two reinstated officers issued a writ for libel against the applicants an action begun by writ or summons...
- The applicant commenced proceedings in this Court for writs of mandamus, certiorari and injunctions.
- In September 2004, the applicant filed an application in the High Court for the constitutional writs of certiorari and mandamus.
- Where a court or a public officer wrongly refuses jurisdiction the exercise of the jurisdiction can be commanded by a writ of mandamus.
Synonyms
summons, subpoena, warrant, arraignment, indictment, court order, process, decree;
North American citation;
Latin subpoena ad testificandum
1.1chiefly British A Crown document summoning a peer to Parliament or ordering the election of a member or members of Parliament.This was the day that the writ for the election of members of this Parliament was returned....
- Clark said nominations for the election will close July 2, following the issuing of the election writs June 25.
- You would have to be developing this now, rather than waking up the day that writs are issued for election and wanting to build this within a couple of weeks.
1.2 (one's writ) One’s power to enforce compliance or submission; one’s authority: you have business here which is out of my writ and competence...
- Azor holds this land from Robert [d' Oilly], but the men of the Hundred testify that he ought to hold it from the King, as King William restored it to him at Windsor and gave him his writ for it.
- The land itself is his gift; whoever owns any portion of it must show the writ and seal of the giver, or must at least bring such evidence as the law demands to prove that it has really been granted to him.
- he uttered no protest against the writ in which William King of England - the new-fangled title was now coming in - announced to all his faithful subjects, French and English, that he had given the archbishopric of Canterbury and all that belonged to it to Archbishop Anselm.
2 archaic A piece or body of writing.And Percivale took it, and found therein a writ and so he read it, and devised the manner of the spindles and of the ship, whence it came, and by whom it was made....
- This is the first few lines of a writ of Henry III, from 1234.
Origin
Old English, as a general term denoting written matter, from the Germanic base of write.
Rhymes
writ2
/rɪt/verb
archaic past participle of write.And no doubt it is part of our middle western definition of community, writ in the dictionary of our hearts, not scrawled on some public wall....
- There is no dogma - ‘… none of these are writ in stone’ - is one comment on his site.
- Was it writ all over my face that I was a first time visitor to their city, with my nerves in top gear?
Phrases
writ large