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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.
  2. n. An unlawful breach of duty on the part of a ship's master or crew resulting in injury to the ship's owner.
  3. n. Sale or purchase of positions in church or state.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The purchase or sale of ecclesiastical preferments or of offices of state. See barrator, 1, 3.
  2. n. In old Scots law, the taking of bribes by a judge.
  3. n. The fraud or offense committed by a barrator. See barrator, 4.
  4. n. A vexatious and persistent inciting of others to lawsuits and litigation; a stirring up and maintaining of controversies and litigation. This is a criminal offense at common law.
  5. n. Also barretry, especially in the last sense.

Wiktionary

  1. n. the act of persistently instigating lawsuits, often groundless ones
  2. n. the sale and/or purchase of political positions of power
  3. n. unlawful or fraudulent acts by the crew of a vessel, harming the vessel's owner.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Law) The practice of exciting and encouraging lawsuits and quarrels.
  2. n. (Mar. Law) A fraudulent breach of duty or willful act of known illegality on the part of a master of a ship, in his character of master, or of the mariners, to the injury of the owner of the ship or cargo, and without his consent. It includes every breach of trust committed with dishonest purpose, as by running away with the ship, sinking or deserting her, etc., or by embezzling the cargo.
  3. n. (Scots Law) The crime of a judge who is influenced by bribery in pronouncing judgment.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. traffic in ecclesiastical offices or preferments
  2. n. (maritime law) a fraudulent breach of duty by the master of a ship that injures the owner of the ship or its cargo; includes every breach of trust such as stealing or sinking or deserting the ship or embezzling the cargo
  3. n. the crime of a judge whose judgment is influenced by bribery
  4. n. the offense of vexatiously persisting in inciting lawsuits and quarrels

Etymologies

  1. Early 15th century, in sense “sale of offices”, from Old French baraterie ("deceit, trickery"), from barat ("fraud, deceit, trickery"), of Unknown origin, perhaps Celtic. In marine sense of “unlawful acts causing loss to owner”, 1620s. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English barratrie, the sale of church offices, from Old French baraterie, deception, malversation, from barater, to cheat; see barrator. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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hypernyms (10)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. traffic
  2. fraud
  1. bribery
  2. graft
  1. crime
  2. criminal offence
  1. offence
  2. offense
  1. criminal offense
  2. law-breaking

same context (5)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. asportation
  1. pyromania
  1. incendiarism
  1. dilatory
  1. simony

reverse dictionary (5)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. barrator
  1. marine insurance
  1. barratrous
  1. barratrously
  1. barrater

tags (5)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. cvccvccv
  1. wotd
  1. word-of-the-day
  1. legal
  1. criminal

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  • chained_bear "The idea was so feasible, in fact, that had the court known of a friendship between Briggs and the Dei Gratia's captain the entire episode might have been ruled an insurance scheme, or barratry—fraud against the owners—at the very least. Morehouse and possibly even Winchester would have gone to jail.... He knew what it looked like. It smacks of insurance fraud even today but, upon examination, that too is unlikely."
    —Brian Hicks, Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew (NY: Ballantine Books, 2004), 151 Sep 18, 2009

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‘barratry’ has been looked up 2345 times, loved by 4 people, added to 24 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 13.