The Collaborative International Dictionary
Magna Carta \Mag"na Car"ta\, Magna Charta \Mag"na Char"ta\ [L., great charter.]
The great Charter, so called, obtained by the English barons from King John, A. D. 1215. This name is also given to the charter granted to the people of England in the ninth year of Henry III., and confirmed by Edward I.
Hence, a fundamental constitution which guaranties rights and privileges.
Usage examples of "magna charta".
And from that day Humphrey, a serving-man no longer, followed his dear lad, not only in France, but later in England, when Magna Charta had been signed, and it was safe for them all to return.
He caused Magna Charta to be still more improved, and so amended the Forest Laws that a Peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in a Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned.
He could not remember the clauses of Magna Charta, but he knew eternally that it was signed at a place amusingly called Runnymede.
Dinny said unresponsively, and began studying the papers like an orangutan inspecting the Magna Charta.
As a lawyer and as an office-holder, sworn to uphold the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, not to mention those inviolable protections of both persons and property so firmly spelled out in the Magna Charta and in the whole subsequent accretion of the common law, Seward found that he quite enjoyed tearing up, one by one, those ancient liberties in the Union’.
As a lawyer and as an office-holder, sworn to uphold the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, not to mention those inviolable protections of both persons and property so firmly spelled out in the Magna Charta and in the whole subsequent accretion of the common law, Seward found that he quite enjoyed tearing up, one by one, those ancient liberties in the Union's name.