The Collaborative International Dictionary
Assize \As*size"\, n. [OE. assise, asise, OF. assise, F. assises, assembly of judges, the decree pronounced by them, tax, impost, fr. assis, assise, p. p. of asseoir, fr. L. assid?re to sit by; ad + sed[=e]re to sit. See Sit, Size, and cf. Excise, Assess.]
An assembly of knights and other substantial men, with a bailiff or justice, in a certain place and at a certain time, for public business. [Obs.]
-
(Law)
A special kind of jury or inquest.
A kind of writ or real action.
A verdict or finding of a jury upon such writ.
A statute or ordinance in general. Specifically: (1) A statute regulating the weight, measure, and proportions of ingredients and the price of articles sold in the market; as, the assize of bread and other provisions; (2) A statute fixing the standard of weights and measures.
-
Anything fixed or reduced to a certainty in point of time, number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc.; as, rent of assize.
--Glanvill.
--Spelman.
--Cowell.
--Blackstone.
--Tomlins.
--Burrill.Note: [This term is not now used in England in the sense of a writ or real action, and seldom of a jury of any kind, but in Scotch practice it is still technically applied to the jury in criminal cases.
--Stephen.
--Burrill.
--Erskine.] A court, the sitting or session of a court, for the trial of processes, whether civil or criminal, by a judge and jury.
--Blackstone.
--Wharton.
--Encyc. Brit.The periodical sessions of the judges of the superior courts in every county of England for the purpose of administering justice in the trial and determination of civil and criminal cases; -- usually in the plural.
--Brande.
--Wharton.
--Craig.
--Burrill.The time or place of holding the court of assize; -- generally in the plural, assizes.
-
Measure; dimension; size. [In this sense now corrupted into size.]
An hundred cubits high by just assize.
--Spenser.
Wiktionary
n. (context geology English) two or more beds or strata of rock united by the occurrence of fossils of the same characteristic species or genera.
Wikipedia
An assise (from the Fr., derived from Latin assidere, "to sit beside"), is a geological term for two or more beds or strata of rock united by the occurrence of the same characteristic species or genera. In the hierarchy of stratigraphic units, an assise lies between a stage (or sub-stage) and a stratum.
Usage examples of "assise".
Quelques jours apres, je fis une visite a Mme Planchonnet, que je trouvai assise devant un bouquet de fleurs des champs, remettant un fond a la culotte de son fils aine.
In the Assise of Jerusalem, the legal subtlety of the count of Jaffa is more laudably employed to elude, than to facilitate, the judicial combat, which he derives from a principle of honor rather than of superstition.
From these materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarch and barons, of the clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assise of Jerusalem, a precious monument of feudal jurisprudence.
It is expressly declared in the Assise of Jerusalem, that after instituting, for his knights and barons, the court of peers, in which he presided himself, Godfrey of Bouillon established a second tribunal, in which his person was represented by his viscount.
Devant eux, Notre-Dame etait assise sur un trone, tenant son enfant divin dans ses bras.
In the next place the Assise of Arms of Henry II was improved so as to secure for the king a national support in the time of danger.
Elles sont parfois geminees, et deux meres sont assises cote a cote, tenant chacune un enfant.
The Assises de Jerusalem, in old law French, were printed with Beaumanoir's Coutumes de Beauvoisis, (Bourges and Paris, 1690, in folio,) and illustrated by Gaspard Thaumas de la Thaumassiere, with a comment and glossary.