assize

A session or inquiry made before a court or jury.

Noun

  1. A session or inquiry made before a court or jury.
  2. The verdict reached or pronouncement given by a panel of jurors.
  3. An assembly of knights and other substantial men, with a bailiff or justice, in a certain place and at a certain time, for public business.
  4. A statute or ordinance, especially one regulating weights and measures.
    • the assize of bread and other provisions
  5. Anything fixed or reduced to a certainty in point of time, number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc.
    • rent of assize
    • the Judgment of an Assize upon the whole - 1681, Joseph Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus:
  6. A measure, dimension, or size.
    • an hundred cubits high by just assize - 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Visons”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:

Origin

From Middle English assise, from Old French assises, feminine plural participle of Old French asseoir (“to sit”), from Latin assidere.

Forms

assizes aßize

Derived

Great Assize maiden assize

Verb

  1. To assess; to set or fix the quantity or price.

Forms

assizes assizing assized aßize

Derived

assizer assizor