claught (klacht)

[See claught, pret. and pp.] A catch; a hold: as, I took a claught o' him. [Scotch.] (klâz), n. = D. clause (kaz) claus ME. clause clauses, a clause (L. dim. clausula, a clause, close of a period: see clausule ), Now have I told you schortly in a clause The stat, tharray, the nombre, and eek the cause Why that a embled was this compainye. Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to C. T., 1. 715. The clause is untrue concerning the bishop. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, ii. The single important clause was that which declared the Macaulay, Hist. Eng. throne vacant. 2. A distinct stipulation, condition, proviso, etc.: as, a special clause in a contract.-3. In gram., one of the le er sentences which united and modified form a compound or complex sentence. A clause differs from a phrase in containing both a subject and its predicate, while a phrase is a group of two or more words not containing both these e ential elements of a simple sentence. The principal clause is that member of a complex sentence on which others, called dependent or subordinate clauses, depend. The members of a compound sentence are coördinate clauses. Principal and coördinate clauses separated from the remainder of the sentence can by omi ion of connectives (conjunc tions or relatives), and addition, if nece ary, of words from other clauses, resume the form of simple sentences. Dependent clauses often require further changes of mood, tense, and person to become independent sentences. -A umption clause, a clause frequently inserted in a deed of property subject to a mortgage or other debt, whereby the grantee a umes the payment of the debt in exoneration of the original debtor. Attestation clause, See attestation.-Bright's clauses, provisions in the Irish Land Act, an English statute of 1870, intended to facilitate the formation of a peasant proprietary by enabling tenants to purchase their holdings. - Clause of accruer. See accruer. Clause of devolution, in Scots law, a clause devolving some office, obligation, or duty on a party in a certain event, as, for example, on the failure of another to perform. Clause of return, in Scots law, a clause by which the granter of a right makes a particular distinction of it, and provides that in a certain event it shall return to himself. - Clauses consolidation acts, a cla of English statutes consolidating or combining and condensing into one system of general application provisions which had previously been frequently enacted in the same or varying forms, for each of many different instances, persons, corporations, or places. Such are the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, molding into one statute pro visions usually inserted in special acts authorizing construction of railways, and Land Clauses Con solid a tion Act, a similar act as to taking private property for public use. - Clauses irritant and resolutive, in Scots law, clauses devised for limiting the right of an absolute proprietor in entails. - Comparative clause. See com 1032 of which the estate given is to shift from one person to another. - Similitude clause or act, a name given to Section 20 of the United States tariff of 1842, imposing clause-rolls (klâz'rolz), n. pl. Same as close rolls. See close2, a. duties on articles bearing similitude to those enumerated.