Found 1 items, similar to Act of indemnity.
English → English (gcide) Definition: Act of indemnity Indemnity \In*dem"ni*ty\, n.; pl. Indemnities. [L. indemnitas, fr. indemnis uninjured: cf. F. indemnit['e]. See Indemnify.] [1913 Webster] 1. Security; insurance; exemption from loss or damage, past or to come; immunity from penalty, or the punishment of past offenses; amnesty. [1913 Webster] Having first obtained a promise of indemnity for the riot they had committed. --Sir W. Scott. [1913 Webster] 2. Indemnification, compensation, or remuneration for loss, damage, or injury sustained. [1913 Webster] They were told to expect, upon the fall of Walpole, a large and lucrative indemnity for their pretended wrongs. --Ld. Mahon. [1913 Webster] Note: Insurance is a contract of indemnity. --Arnould. The owner of private property taken for public use is entitled to compensation or indemnity. --Kent. [1913 Webster] Act of indemnity (Law), an act or law passed in order to relieve persons, especially in an official station, from some penalty to which they are liable in consequence of acting illegally, or, in case of ministers, in consequence of exceeding the limits of their strict constitutional powers. These acts also sometimes provide compensation for losses or damage, either incurred in the service of the government, or resulting from some public measure. [1913 Webster] Act \Act\ ([a^]kt), n. [L. actus, fr. agere to drive, do: cf. F. acte. See Agent.] 1. That which is done or doing; the exercise of power, or the effect, of which power exerted is the cause; a performance; a deed. [1913 Webster] That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. --Wordsworth. [1913 Webster] Hence, in specific uses: (a) The result of public deliberation; the decision or determination of a legislative body, council, court of justice, etc.; a decree, edit, law, judgment, resolve, award; as, an act of Parliament, or of Congress. (b) A formal solemn writing, expressing that something has been done. --Abbott. (c) A performance of part of a play; one of the principal divisions of a play or dramatic work in which a certain definite part of the action is completed. (d) A thesis maintained in public, in some English universities, by a candidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a student. [1913 Webster] 2. A state of reality or real existence as opposed to a possibility or possible existence. [Obs.] [1913 Webster] The seeds of plants are not at first in act, but in possibility, what they afterward grow to be. --Hooker. [1913 Webster] 3. Process of doing; action. In act, in the very doing; on the point of (doing). “In act to shoot.” --Dryden. [1913 Webster] This woman was taken . . . in the very act. --John viii. 4. [1913 Webster] Act of attainder. (Law) See Attainder. Act of bankruptcy (Law), an act of a debtor which renders him liable to be adjudged a bankrupt. Act of faith. (Ch. Hist.) See Auto-da-F['e]. Act of God (Law), an inevitable accident; such extraordinary interruption of the usual course of events as is not to be looked for in advance, and against which ordinary prudence could not guard. Act of grace, an expression often used to designate an act declaring pardon or amnesty to numerous offenders, as at the beginning of a new reign. Act of indemnity, a statute passed for the protection of those who have committed some illegal act subjecting them to penalties. --Abbott. Act in pais, a thing done out of court (anciently, in the country), and not a matter of record. [1913 Webster] Syn: See Action. [1913 Webster]