[L. jūs cīvīle.]
The law of Roman citizens; thence, the Roman law as a whole, esp. as received in Western christendom in and after the Middle Ages.
In early times, specially distinguished from the Canon law, in later times from the Common law of England. See LAW.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 326. Alle þis is lawe cyvyl.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. iii. 95. The lawys cyvyle, na canown.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 427/1. Grete scyence bothe in ryght cyuyl and in Cannon.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 107. There are an innumerable companie of examples in the ciuill law.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 125, ¶ 1. It is one of the maxims of the civil law that definitions are hazardous.
1817. W. Selwyn, Law Nisi Prius, II. 827. This head of revocation was originally borrowed from the civil law.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), II. 355. Trinity Hall has twelve fellowships, usually held by graduates in the civil law.
b. In more general sense: The law of any city or state regulating the private rights and duties of the inhabitants; also used in other senses of civil.
1483. Caxton, Cato, A viij. Right lawe deuyne cyuyl and moralle.
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Log., Ded. The name, Cyvill, beeing common to the several lawes of any peculiar kingdome.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath. (1839), 251. Civil law, is to every subject, those rules, which the commonwealth hath commanded him … for the distinction of right, and wrong.
1825. W. Cobbett, Rur. Rides, 378. In defiance of the law, ecclesiastical as well as civil.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, II. 395. In the administration of civil law, Panchayats were had recourse to, while criminal cases were investigated by the British functionaries in person.
1880. Muirhead, trans. Instit. Gaius, I. § 1. What each people has established on its own account is peculiar to itself, and is called its civil law.
