Now chiefly U.S. [ad. L. locātiōn-em, n. of action f. locāre to LOCATE]
1. Civil and Sc. Law. The action of letting for hire (correlative with CONDUCTION): see quot. a. 1768. Contract of location: a contract by which the use of a chattel is agreed to be given for hire, or by which a person agrees to give his services on the same condition.
1592. West, 1st Pt. Symbol., § 29. If the partie commaunded haue anything for his paine, it is not then properly commaundement, but Location and Conduction.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., Table 86. Location (setting for hyre and profite) … Location and conduction of kirk-lands.
1651. Hobbes, Govt. & Soc., iii. § 6. 40. In buying, selling, borrowing, lending, location, and conduction, and other acts whatsoever belonging to Contracters.
1681. Visct. Stair, Instit., I. xv. § 1 (1693), 129. Location and Conduction is a Contract, whereby Hire is given for the Fruits, Use, or Work of Persons or Things.
a. 1768. Erskine, Instit., III. iii. § 14 (1773), 450. Location is that contract, in which a hire is agreed upon, for the use of any moveable subject, or for the work or service of persons.
1818. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, I. II. iv. 136. Part of the great subject, location, or letting and taking to hire.
1880. Muirhead, Gaius, II. § 60. If we have neither taken the thing from our creditor in location, nor on our own request obtained possession of it from him. Ibid., III. § 14 [see CONDUCTION 7].
† 2. The action of placing; the fact or condition of being placed; settlement in a place.
1623. Cockeram, Location, a placing.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, Disc. Mixture, iii. (1682), 226. As Mixture is varied with respect to the Bodies Mixed; so likewise in respect of the Mixture it self, which I call the Location of Principles, or the Modes of their Conjunction.
1799. J. Winthrop, in N. Eng. Hist. & Gen. Reg. (1873), XXVII. 354. The location of the camps and the idea of an harbor are mine.
1837. J. D. Lang, New S. Wales, I. 166. For opening new settlements for the location of additional free settlers.
1838. Prescott, Ford. & Is. (1846), I. x. 404. The Castilian officers, to whom the location of the camp had been intrusted.
1891. Month, LXXIII. 433. The location and translocation of spirits.
1901. Scotsman, 13 March, 9/6. A possible location of batches of 1000 Boers at Dehra.
b. Appointment to official positions. rare.
a. 1816. Bentham, Offic. Apt. Maximized, Introd. View (1830), 7. Remuneration to the intended functionaries … for the time and labour requisite to be expended on their part; before location, in qualifying themselves for rendering their several official services; after location, in the actual rendering of those same services. Ibid. (1816), Ibid., Extr. Const. Code, 18. System of official location, or, for shortness, the location system.
3. The fact or condition of occupying a particular place; local position, situation. Also, position in a series or succession.
1597. A. M., trans. Guillemeau’s Fr. Chirurg., 32 b/1. When the recurved muscles revert to there accustomede locationes.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, I. vii. (1611), 29. The middle Points are those that haue their location in or neere to the Center of the escocheon.
1632. trans. Bruel’s Praxis Med., 1. The head is more tormented with paine then any other part of the body; which is partly caused by the location of the head.
1653. Baxter, Chr. Concord, 17. Our Reasons for the location and order of each part and terme.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, Disc. Mixture, iii. (1682), 226. Both the Conjugation, Proportion, and Location of Letters is varied in every Word.
a. 1817. T. Dwight, Trav. New Eng., etc. (1821), II. 263. East-Hartford resembles East-Windsor in location, soil, agriculture.
1883. A. Barratt, Phys. Metempiric, 173. Definite location in space is necessary for an intelligence having varied experience of a world of objects in space.
1883. P. Schaff, Hist. Ch., II. XII. lxxxiii. 709. He knows the location of the prætorium.
4. The marking out or surveying of a tract of land (esp. of a ‘claim’) or a settlement; the laying out of a road or the like. U.S.
1718. New Jersey Archives (1882), IV. 379. Lands … laid out on Passaiak by name, and Scituate on ye same Passaiak by an actual Survey or location.
1770. Washington, Lett., Writ. 1889, II. 275. Sandy Creek (one of the places allotted for the location of our grant).
1785. T. Pickering, in R. King’s Life & Corr. (1894), I. 72. To explore the country and make locations.
1795. J. Sullivan, Hist. Maine, 159. There was no regularity in the locations of the lands.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Location, the act of fixing the boundaries of a mining claim, according to law.
5. concr. (U.S.) A tract of land marked out or surveyed; spec. a mining ‘claim.’ Also, in the South African colonies, the quarters set apart for natives.
1792. J. Belknap, Hist. New Hampsh., III. 14. In the map … those parts are more full and correct, excepting the lines of towns and locations.
1798. I. Allen, Hist. Vermont, 14. A few families settled … on locations from and under the Province of Massachusetts.
1809. Kendall, Trav., III. 173. Above Conway is Bartlett, the last town on the east side of the mountains, the lands above being at present only called locations.
1848. Thoreau, Maine W. (1894), 48. They tell a story of a gang of experienced woodmen sent to a location on this stream, who were thus lost in the wilderness of lakes.
1878. Froude, in A. Aylward, Transvaal, ii. (1881), 20, note. They [i.e., the natives] are allowed as much land as they want for their locations.
1882. Rep. to Ho. Repr. Prec. Met. U.S., 321. The Grand Dipper is a promising location in the same locality with the Bunker Hill.
1894. ‘Max O’Rell,’ John Bull & Co., 283. A kraal, called a location, where the Kaffirs employed in the town as porters, carters, servants, etc., live in huts.
b. In Australia, a farm or station.
1828. P. Cunningham, N. S. Wales (ed. 3), II. 141. Importation succeeding importation until the distance of the locations required a fresh central farm to be instituted.
1863. Mark Lemon, Wait for End, xiii. (1866), 162. She was continually the companion of her father in his rides about the location.
1865. F. H. Nixon, Peter Perfume, 101. This ‘location’ of Deniliquin is the best place for spreeing I’ve ever been in.
attrib. 1846. J. L. Stokes, Discov. Austral., II. vii. 246. A piece of land is obtained by a person who merely performs the location duties, and does nothing to his estate.
6. Place of settlement or residence. Chiefly U.S.
1827. G. Higgins, Celtic Druids, 57. My theory or system to move the location of the first inhabitants of the earth.
1827. Examiner, 261/2. [He] changes his character, costume, and location (as the Yankees say).
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. I. 138. These were students of Schenectady College: would I like to see it? a beautiful location, not half a mile off.
1876. Besant & Rice, Gold. Butterfly (1877), 218. They visited Windsor. Mr. Beck said that if he had such a location he should always live there.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 221. A … first-class, fattening, plains-country cattle station … having been his ideal location.
