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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bailiwick

Bailiwick \Bail"i*wick\, n. [Bailie, bailiff + wick a village.] (Law) The precincts within which a bailiff has jurisdiction; the limits of a bailiff's authority.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
bailiwick

"district of a bailiff," early 15c., baillifwik, from bailiff (q.v.) + Middle English form of Old English wic "village" (see wick (n.2)). Figurative sense of "one's natural or proper sphere" is first recorded 1843.

Wiktionary
bailiwick

n. 1 the district within which a bailie or bailiff has jurisdiction. 2 a person's concern or sphere of operations, their area of skill or authority.

WordNet
bailiwick
  1. n. the area over which a bailiff has jurisdiction

  2. a branch of knowledge; "in what discipline is his doctorate?"; "teachers should be well trained in their subject"; "anthropology is the study of human beings" [syn: discipline, subject, subject area, subject field, field, field of study, study, branch of knowledge]

Wikipedia
Bailiwick

A bailiwick is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. The word is now more generally used in a metaphorical sense, to indicate a sphere of authority, experience, activity, study, or interest. A bailiwick was also the territorial division of the Teutonic Order. Here, various “Komtur(en)” formed a Ballei province.

The term survives in administrative usage in the British Crown dependencies of the Channel Islands, which are grouped for administrative purposes into two bailiwicks—Jersey (comprising the island of Jersey and uninhabited islets such as the Minquiers and Écréhous) and Guernsey (comprising the islands of Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, Brecqhou, Herm, Jethou and Lihou). A Bailiff heads each Channel Island bailiwick.

Usage examples of "bailiwick".

Kansas, but at present we are outside the bailiwick of Ford County, and those papers of yours are useless.

But in business, in my bailiwick, it would be wrong to profit from it.

The prolonged stay of the French troops in the bailiwick of Bergdorf, which had all the appearance of an occupation, might have led to the confiscation of all Hamburg property in England, to the laying an embargo on the vessels of the Republic, and consequently to the ruin of a great part of the trade of France and Holland, which was carried on under the flag of Hamburg.

There was no longer any motive for occupying the bailiwick of Bergdorf when there were no Prussians in that quarter.

It would have been an absurd misfortune that eighty men stationed in that bailiwick should, for the sake of a few louis and a few ells of English cloth, have occasioned the confiscation of Hamburg, French, and Dutch property to the amount of 80,000,000 francs.

I have given orders for the evacuation of the bailiwick of Bergdorf and all the Hamburg territory.

Security of the naval and military forces is their bailiwick, the more so with the damage done to the KGB after the departure of our friend Andropov.

In the course of this summer the two powers concluded a convention, in consequence of which the troops of Hanover evacuated Mecklenburgh, and three regiments of Brandenburgh took possession of those bailiwicks that were mortgaged to the king of Prussia.

In order to render the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, propitious to this design, he was accommodated with the loan of a very considerable sum, upon the mortgage of certain bailiwicks and lordships belonging to the Saxon dominions.

Those fancy temples to almighty Mammon burned with remarkable gusto despite all the fireproof rugs and drapes, asbestos tiling, and years of accumulated Allstate premiums guaranteeing that No Harm would ever befall the indulgent bailiwicks at the top of our social, economic, and criminal food chain .

In fact, the Hmong view of health care seemed to me to be precisely the opposite of the prevailing American one, in which the practice of medicine has fissioned into smaller and smaller subspecialties, with less and less truck between bailiwicks.

Barre chose the Carmelite prior, and the bailiff Charles Chauvet, assessor of the bailiwick, Ismael Boulieau a priest, and Pierre Thibaut, an articled clerk, who all set out at once to execute their commission, while the rest of those present were to await their return.

Fourteen towns of the bailiwicks of Franche-Comté form a patriotic league.

Bailiffs were allowed eight armsmen on their permanent payroll, but in tax time they hired as many as thirty toughs from other bailiwicks to help collect the taxes.

Indeed, the entertainment industry is one of the few bailiwicks where feminism is still taken seriously.