assize

English

Alternative forms

• aßize (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English assise, from Old French assises, from Latin assidere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈsaɪz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

assize (plural assizes)

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

   • 1681, Joseph Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus:

     the Judgment of an Assize upon the whole

6. (obsolete) Measure; dimension; size.
   • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Visons”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:

     an hundred cubits high by just assize

Derived terms

• Great Assize
• maiden assize

Translations

a session or inquiry made before a court or jury

• Galician: sisa f
• Latin: assisa f (medieval)
• Russian: суде́бное разбира́тельство (sudébnoje razbirátelʹstvo)

Verb

assize (third-person singular simple present assizes, present participle assizing, simple past and past participle assized)

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

Derived terms

• assizer
• assizor

 

References

• “assize”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Saizes