accessorial

[ACCESSORY.] Pertaining to an acce ory. [ACCESSORY, a.] "A sentence prayed or moved for on the principal matter in question ought to be certain, but on acces sorial matters it may be uncertain. -Ayliffe : Pa rergon , 490. ăc-çěs-sor-i-lỹ, ăc-çes-sar-i-ly, adv. [ACCESSORY OF ACCESSARY.] After the manner of an acce ory. ăc-çěs-sor-i-ne , ăc-çěs-sar-i-ne , 8. [ACCESSORY OF ACCESSARY.] The state of being acce ory. a negative acce orine to the mischiefs." -Dr. H. More: Decay of Christian Piety. ăc-çěs-sor-ỹ, s. [In Fr. acce oire ; Low Lat. acce orius , fr. cla ical Lat. acce us .] [ACCESS.] A. Of persons: Law : One who is not the chief actor in an offence nor present at its commi ion, but still is connected with it in some other way. Acce ories may become so before the fact or after the fact . Sir Matthew Hale defines an acce ory before the fact as one who, being absent at the time of the crime committed, doth yet procure, counsel, or command another to commit a crime. If the procurer be present when the evil deed is being done, he is not an acce ory, but a principal. An acce ory after the fact is one who, knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, comforts, and a ists the felon. In high treason of a pronounced character there are no acce ories, all are principals. In petit treason, murder, and felonies, there may be acce ories; except only in those offences which, by judgment of law, are sudden and unpremeditated, as manslaughter and the like, which, therefore, cannot have any acce ories before the fact. So too in petit larceny, and in all crimes under the degree of felony, there are no acce ories either before or after the fact; but all persons concerned therein, if guilty at all, are principals. (Black stone: Commentaries, bk. iv., chap. iii.) "For the law of principal and acce ory , as respects high treason, then was, and is to this day, in a state disgraceful to English jurisprudence. In cases of felony, a distinction, founded on justice and reason, is made between the principal and the acce ory after the fact. He who conceals from justice one whom he knows to be a murderer is liable to punishment, nishment, but not to the punishment of murder. He, on the other hand, who shelters one whom he knows to be a traitor is, according to all our jurists, guilty of high treason." -Macaulay: Hist . Eng ., ch. v. 2. Ord. Lang. ( somewhat figuratively ): One who abets or countenances anything which is wrong, whether human law consider it a crime or no. "An acce ary by thine inclination To all sins past, and all that are to come, From the creation to the general doom." B. Of things: Shakesp. Rape of Lucrece. 1. Gen. That which helps something else. the consideration constitutes an acce ary to the fundamental law of progre ."- Martin eau : Comte's Philosophy , Introd., ch. i. 2. Painting: Acce ories are whatever representations are introduced into a painting apart from the leading figures. In literary composition, ., the word has an analogous meaning. who seeks only to embody in language the substance of the fact, and who discards all acce ories , all ornament, and all conjecture."- Lewis : Credibility of Early Roman Hist . 3. Biol . Something added to the usual number of organs or their parts. ( Loudon .) "The swim-bladder has also been worked in as an acce ory to the auditory organs of certain fish."Darwin: Origin of Species.