Legal Term: HONOR

Definition: High estimation. A testimony of high estimation. Dignity. Reputation. Dignified respect of character springing from probity, principle, or moral rectitude. A duel is not justified by any insult to our honor. Honor is also employed to signify integrity in a judge, courage in a soldier, and chastity in a woman. To deprive a woman of her honor is, in some cases, punished as a public wrong, and by an action for the recovery of damages done to the relative rights of a hushand or a father. Vide Criminal conversation.

2. In England, when a peer of parliament is sitting judicially in that body, his pledge of honor is received instead of an oath; and in courts of equity, peers, peeresses, and lords of parliament, answer on their honor only. But the courts of common law know no such distinction. It is needless to add, that as we are not encumbered by a nobility, there is no such distinction in the United States, all persons being equal in the eye of the law.

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