bail2 (bal)

t. [ It. bailo, balio = Pg. bailio = Sp. Pr. baile = OF. bail, with ML. reflex baillus, bali us, etc.) a governor, administrator, tutor, guardian, fem. bajula (> OF. baille, etc., ML. reflex bail a ), a governe , nurse. In E. the verb, in its customary senses, is rather from the noun: see bail2, n.] 1. In law: (a) To deliver, as goods, without transference of ownership, on an agreement, expre ed or implied, thus obtain the temporary release of a prisoner. Persons who make a busine of furnishing bail on pay ment of a fee often frequent law-courts. Formerly such persons wore straws in their shoes as a sign of their occu pation; hence the term straw bail, used to designate fic titious or irresponsible profe ional bail. The bail must be real substantial bondsmen. IMG:content-1564.png:[blocks in formation] Where those mysterious personages who were wont in the old times to perambulate the great saloon of the futile and whose occupation is not by any means gone now-a footsteps, Westminster Hall, with straws in their shoes, days, are always in attendance in a philanthropic eagerne to render service to suffering humanity or in other words, to become bail where bail is wanted, for a gratuity of half-a-crown to twelve and sixpence. G. A. Sala . [ Bail, being an abstract noun applicable to persons only by ellipsis, is not used in the plural.] - Bail à longues années, in Canadian law, a lease for more than nine years, termed also an emphyteutic lease, whereby the lesity of proprietor, and can dispose of the property subject see enjoys for the term all the rights attached to the qual to the rights of the le or. On bail, on guaranties duly given for the appearance or production of a prisoner in court at the proper time: as, he was liberated on bail. His [Somerset's] friends attempted to obtain his release on bail. Stubbs, Const. Hist., § 672. To admit to bail, or to take bail for, to release upon security given. See above, 2. To find bail, to procure persons to act as bail. To go bail. (a) To act as bail or that. To hold to bail, to oblige to find bail or go to jail. To perfect or justify bail, to prove by the oath of the person furnishing bail that, over and above his debts, he is worth the sum for which he is about to become security. bail3 (bal), n. [Early mod. E. also bayle (still sometimes used archaically in def. 6), Set them uppon some pearche or bayle of wood that they maye by that meanes the better keepe their feathers unbroken and eschue the dragging of their traines upon the ground. Turberville , Booke of Falconrie, p. 358. ( N. E. D.) 2. In cricket , one of the two little bars or sticks, about 4 inches long, which are laid on the tops of the stumps, one end resting in the groove of one stump, and the other in that of the next. Since they fall with the lightest blow, they serve to indicate when the stumps have been struck. Old Bailey gravely sets up the middle stump again, and puts the bails on. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, ii. 8. 3. A bar or pole to separate horses in a stable. -4. A framework for securing the head of a cow while she is being milked. [Australia.]5. [The earliest use in E.] Milit.: (a) pl. The outer wall or line of defenses, originally often made of stakes; barriers; palisades. See palisade. Hence - (b) The space inclosed by the outer wall; the outer court of a castle or a fortified post: in this sense usually called bailey. See bailey1.-6. A certain limit in a forest. bails (bal), v. t. [Early mod. E. also bale; appar. sense, directly To bail up. (a) To secure the head (of a cow) in a bail while she is being milked. Hence-(b) To disarm preparatory to robbing; order to throw up the arms. [Australia.]