Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Privity
Priv′i-ty
,Noun.
pl.
Privities
(-tĭz)
. 1.
Privacy; secrecy; confidence.
Chaucer.
I will unto you, in
privity
, discover . . . my purpose. Spenser.
2.
Private knowledge; joint knowledge with another of a private concern; cognizance implying consent or concurrence.
All the doors were laid open for his departure, not without the
privity
of the Prince of Orange. Swift.
3.
A private matter or business; a secret.
Chaucer.
4.
pl.
The genitals; the privates.
5.
(Law)
A connection, or bond of union, between parties, as to some particular transaction; mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property.
Webster 1828 Edition
Privity
PRIV'ITY
,Noun.
I will to you, in privity, discover the drift of my purpose. [Little used.]
1.
Private knowledge; joint knowledge with another of a private concern, which is often supposed to imply consent or concurrence. All the doors were laid open for his departure, not without the privity of the prince of Orange.
But it is usual to say, 'a thing is done with his privity and consent;' in which phrase, privity signifies merely private knowledge.
2.
Privities, in the plural, secret parts; the parts which modesty requires to be concealed.Definition 2024
privity
privity
English
Noun
privity (plural privities)
- (obsolete) A divine mystery; something known only to God, or revealed only in holy scriptures.
- (obsolete) A private matter, a secret.
- (now rare, archaic) Privacy, secrecy.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ix:
- Him oft and oft I askt in priuitie, / Of what loines and what lignage I did spring […].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ix:
- (archaic, in the plural) The genitals.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, I.49:
- Having ended the delights of nature, they were wont to wipe their privities [transl. catze] with perfumed wooll.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, I.49:
- (law) A relationship between parties seen as being a result of their mutual interest or participation in a given transaction, contract etc.
- 1870, Lysander Spooner, No Treason, Number 6, page 32:
- There is no privity, (as the lawyers say),—that is, no mutual recognition, consent and agreement—between those who take these oaths, and any other persons.
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