writ

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Law A written order issued by a court, commanding the party to whom it is addressed to perform or cease performing a specified act.
2. n. Writings: holy writ.
3. v. A past tense and a past participle of write.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. That which is written; a writing: used especially of the Bible, with holy or sacred, often capitalized as a title.
2. n. In law, a precept under seal, in the name of the people, or the sovereign, or other competent legal authority, commanding the officer or other person to whom it is addressed or issued to do or refrain from doing some specified act. In early times, when the pleadings and proceedings generally in actions were oral, writs were, as the name implies, the written parts of an action (besides judgments in courts of record), it being for obvious reasons required that the warrant by which a person or his property might be seized, or his conduct controlled under penalty of contempt, should be expressed in writing and attested by the name and seal of the government.
3. n. A formal instrument or writing of any kind.
4. n. In the United States, a mandatory precept issuing out of the clerk's office in any of the courts of law, by the authority and in the name of the State or commonwealth, under the seal of the court from which it issues, bearing teste of the chief justice of the court, if he is not a party, and signed by the clerk of the court. (Heard.) Its object is to compel the appearance of the defendant, or at least to give him due notice that he is sued. In most of the States it has been superseded by a summons, issued by the plaintiff's attorney, giving such notice and requiring the defendant to plead. See also original writ, under original.
5. n. The writ is legally capable of enforcement: as, the writ of subpœna runs throughout the state.
6. n. The writ is practically capable of enforcement: as, “When lawlessness has yielded to order; when the Queen's writ runs; when the edicts of the civil courts are obeyed; … and when sedition is trampled under foot—then, and then only, is there some chance for the development of remedial measures.” (Edinburgh Rev., CLXV. 587.)
7. n. An obsolete form of third person singular present indicative (for writeth), and an obsolete or archaic form of past participle, of write.

Wiktionary

1. n. law A written order, issued by a court, ordering someone to do (or stop doing) something.
2. n. authority, power to enforce compliance
3. n. that which is written; writing.
4. v. this sense?) (dated) Past participle of write (normally, “written”) and used in the phrase writ large. This form survives in the Scouse dialect (in-fact, it is dominant), but is practically obsolete in all others.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. 3d pers. sing. pres. of write, for writeth.
2. imp. & p. p. of write.
3. n. That which is written; writing; scripture; -- applied especially to the Scriptures, or the books of the Old and New testaments.
4. n. (Law) An instrument in writing, under seal, in an epistolary form, issued from the proper authority, commanding the performance or nonperformance of some act by the person to whom it is directed.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (law) a legal document issued by a court or judicial officer