angnat, agnate

& a. [In Ger. & Fr. agnat; Sp. & Port. agnado; Ital. agnato; all from Lat. agnatus, pl. agnati; from agnatus, pa. par. of agnascor = to be born in addition to: ad to; nascor = to be born.] A. As substantive : 1. Old Roman Law : A person related to another through males only. He was contradistinguished from a cognate, in the connecting line of whose kinship to a second person one or more females had been interposed. Thus a brother's son is his uncle's agnate, because the short line of connection between them can be constituted by males only; while a sister's son is his cognate, because there is a female in the chain of descent. By the law of the twelve tables only agnates po e ed the rights of family and succe ion, the cognates of every rank being disinherited as strangers and aliens. Just in i an wholly abolished the distinction between agnates and cognates. ( Mackenzie : Rom. Law , 1870, ch. ix.) 2. Scotch Law : In this the terms agnates and cognates are used, but not quite in the Roman sense. In Scotland all kinsmen by the father's side, whether females intervene or not, are agnates; and all by the mother's side are cognates. ( Ibid .; also Erskine's Instit.) B. As adjective: 1. Lit. Pertaining to male relatives by the father's side. 2. Fig .: Akin, similar. (Used of languages.) "By an attentive examination of the peculiarities in enunciation which each people have in the one way or the other, by a fair fair reciprocal analysis of the agnate words they reciprocally use."- Pownall : Study of Antiquities .