Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Equity

Eq′ui·ty, n.; pl. Equities (#). [F. équité, L. aequitas, fr. aequus even, equal. See Equal.] 1. Equality of rights; natural justice or right; the giving, or desiring to give, to each man his due, according to reason, and the law of God to man; fairness in determination of conflicting claims; impartiality.

Christianity secures both the private interests of men and the public peace, enforcing all justice and equity. Tillotson.

2. (Law) An equitable claim; an equity of redemption; as, an equity to a settlement, or wife's equity, etc.

I consider the wife's equity to be too well settled to be shaken. Kent.

3. (Law) A system of jurisprudence, supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of it.

Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application. Macaulay.

☞ Equitable jurisprudence in England and in the United States grew up from the inadequacy of common-law forms to secure justice in all cases; and this led to distinct courts by which equity was applied in the way of injunctions, bills of discovery, bills for specified performance, and other processes by which the merits of a case could be reached more summarily or more effectively than by common-law suits. By the recent English Judicature Act, however, the English judges are bound to give effect, in common-law suits, to all equitable rights and remedies; and when the rules of equity and of common law, in any particular case, conflict, the rules of equity are to prevail. In many jurisdictions in the United States, equity and common law are thus blended; in others distinct equity tribunals are still maintained. See Chancery.

Equity of redemption (Law), the advantage, allowed to a mortgageor, of a certain or reasonable time to redeem lands mortgaged, after they have been forfeited at law by the nonpayment of the sum of money due on the mortgage at the appointed time. Blackstone.

Syn. — Right; justice; impartiality; rectitude; fairness; honesty; uprightness. See Justice.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.