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Definition 2024


botleas

botleas

English

Adjective

botleas (not comparable)

  1. (early English legal historical, of a crime) Too grievous to be atoned for by the payment of a bōt or bōte; irredeemable, unpardonable.
    • 1991, Carla Ann Hage Johnson, “Entitled to Clemency: Mercy in the Criminal Law” in Law and Philosophy X, № 1 (February 1991), page 112:
      Persons guilty of the botleas crimes had no right to any particular punishment. Thus the convicted could not “complain if a foot was taken instead of his eyes, or if he was hanged instead of beheaded”.