| a. | 1. | Created by, permitted by, in conformity with, or relating to, law; | |||||||||
| 2. | (Theol.) According to the law of works, as distinguished from free grace; or resting on works for salvation. | ||||||||||
| 3. | (Law) Governed by the rules of law as distinguished from the rules of equity;
| ||||||||||
| Adj. | 1. | legal - established by or founded upon law or official or accepted rules Antonyms: illegal - prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules; "an illegal chess move" |
| 2. | legal - of or relating to jurisprudence; "legal loophole" | |
| 3. | legal - having legal efficacy or force; "a sound title to the property" Synonyms: sound | |
| 4. | legal - relating to or characteristic of the profession of law; "the legal profession" | |
| 5. | legal - allowed by official rules; "a legal pass receiver" |
HEIR, LEGAL, civil law. A legal heir is one who is of the same blood of the deceased, and who takes the succession by force of law; this is different from a testamentary or conventional heir, who takes the succession in virtue of the disposition of man. See Civil, Code of Louis. art. 873, 875; Dict. de Jurisp., Heritier legitime. There are three classes of legal heirs, to wit; the children and other lawful descendants; the fathers and mothers and other lawful ascendants; and the collateral kindred. Civ. Code of Lo. art. 883.
LEGAL. That which is according to law. It is used in opposition to
equitable, as the legal estate is, in the trustee, the equitable estate in
the cestui que trust. Vide Powell on Mortg. Index, h.t.
2. The party who has the legal title, has alone the right to seek a
remedy for a wrong to his estate, in a court of law, though he may have no
beneficial interest in it. The equitable owner, is he who has not the legal
estate, but is entitled to the beneficial interest.
3. The person who holds the legal estate for the benefit of another, is
called a trustee; he who has the beneficiary interest and does not hold the
legal title, is called the beneficiary, or more technically, the cestui que
trust.
4. When the trustee has a claim, he must enforce his right in a court
of equity, for he cannot sue any one at law, in his own name; 1 East, 497; 8
T. R. 332; 1 Saund. 158, n. 1; 2 Bing. 20; still less can he in such court
sue his own trustee. 1 East, 497.
| legal - Loosely used to mean "in accordance with all the relevant rules", especially in connection with some set of constraints defined by software. "The older =+ alternate for += is no longer legal syntax in ANSI C." "This parser processes each line of legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed." Hackers often model their work as a sort of game played with the environment in which the objective is to maneuver through the thicket of "natural laws" to achieve a desired objective. Their use of "legal" is flavoured as much by this game-playing sense as by the more conventional one having to do with courts and lawyers. Compare language lawyer, legalese. |