Definition of "assize" []

• A session of a court. (noun)
• A decree or edict rendered at such a session. (noun)
• An ordinance regulating weights and measures and the weights and prices of articles of consumption. (noun)
• The standards so established. (noun)
• Law A judicial inquest, the writ by which it is instituted, or the verdict of the jurors. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Our judges lie under no such restraint; for both they and the rest of the court make no difficulty of receiving _gloves_ from the sheriffs, whenever the session or assize concludes without any one receiving sentence of death, which is called a _maiden assize_; a custom of great antiquity."
• "Statute of Winchester (1285), in which it is enacted that "every man have in his house harness for to keep the peace after the ancient assize, that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years.""
• "In 1262, being the 51st of Henry III. was revived an ancient statute, called the assize of bread and ale, which, the king says in the preamble, had been made in the times of his progenitors, some time kings of England."