Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Equity
1.
Equality of rights; natural justice or right; the giving, or desiring to give, to each man his due, according to reason, and the law of God to man; fairness in determination of conflicting claims; impartiality.
Christianity secures both the private interests of men and the public peace, enforcing all justice and
equity
. Tillotson.
2.
(Law)
An equitable claim; an equity of redemption;
as, an
equity
to a settlement, or wife’s equity
, etc.I consider the wife's
equity
to be too well settled to be shaken. Kent.
3.
(Law)
A system of jurisprudence, supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of it.
Equity
had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application. Macaulay.
☞ Equitable jurisprudence in England and in the United States grew up from the inadequacy of common-law forms to secure justice in all cases; and this led to distinct courts by which equity was applied in the way of injunctions, bills of discovery, bills for specified performance, and other processes by which the merits of a case could be reached more summarily or more effectively than by common-law suits. By the recent English Judicature Act (1873), however, the English judges are bound to give effect, in common-law suits, to all equitable rights and remedies; and when the rules of equity and of common law, in any particular case, conflict, the rules of equity are to prevail. In many jurisdictions in the United States, equity and common law are thus blended; in others distinct equity tribunals are still maintained. See
Chancery
.
Syn. – Right; justice; impartiality; rectitude; fairness; honesty; uprightness. See
Justice
. Webster 1828 Edition
Equity
EQ'UITY
,Noun.
1.
Justice; right. In practice, equity is the impartial distribution of justice, or the doing that to another which the laws of God and man, and of reason, give him a right to claim. It is the treating of a person according to justice and reason.The Lord shall judge the people with equity. Ps.98.
With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity. Is.11.
2.
Justice; impartiality; a just regard to right or claim; as, we must, in equity, allow this claim.3.
In law, an equitable claim. 'I consider the wife's equity to be too well settled to be shaken.'4.
In jurisprudence, the correction or qualification of law, when too severe or defective; or the extension of the words of the law to cases not expressed, yet coming within the reason of the law. Hence a court of equity or chancery, is a court which corrects the operation of the literal text of the law, and supplies its defects, by reasonable construction, and by rules of proceeding and deciding, which are not admissible in a court of law. Equity then is the law of reason, exercised by the chancellor or judge, giving remedy in cases to which the courts of law are not competent.5.
Equity of redemption, in law, the advantage, allowed to a mortgager, of a reasonable time to redeem lands mortgaged, when the estate is of greater value than the sum for which it was mortgaged.