What is "by rights"

Right \Right\, n. [AS. right. See Right, a.]

1. That which is right or correct. Specifically:

   1. The straight course; adherence to duty; obedience to lawful authority, divine or human; freedom from guilt, -- the opposite of moral wrong.

   2. A true statement; freedom from error of falsehood; adherence to truth or fact.

      Seldom your opinions err; Your eyes are always in the right.
      --Prior.

   3. A just judgment or action; that which is true or proper; justice; uprightness; integrity.

      Long love to her has borne the faithful knight, And well deserved, had fortune done him right.
      --Dryden.

2. That to which one has a just claim. Specifically:

   1. That which one has a natural claim to exact.

      There are no rights whatever, without corresponding duties.
      --Coleridge.

   2. That which one has a legal or social claim to do or to exact; legal power; authority; as, a sheriff has a right to arrest a criminal.

   3. That which justly belongs to one; that which one has a claim to possess or own; the interest or share which anyone has in a piece of property; title; claim; interest; ownership.

      Born free, he sought his right.
      --Dryden.

      Hast thou not right to all created things?
      --Milton.

      Men have no right to what is not reasonable.
      --Burke.

   4. Privilege or immunity granted by authority.

3. The right side; the side opposite to the left.

   Led her to the Souldan's right.
   --Spenser.

4. In some legislative bodies of Europe (as in France), those members collectively who are conservatives or monarchists. See Center,

5. 5. The outward or most finished surface, as of a piece of cloth, a carpet, etc. At all right, at all points; in all respects. [Obs.] --Chaucer. Bill of rights, a list of rights; a paper containing a declaration of rights, or the declaration itself. See under Bill. By right, By rights, or By good rights, rightly; properly; correctly. He should himself use it by right. --Chaucer. I should have been a woman by right. --Shak. Divine right, or Divine right of kings, a name given to the patriarchal theory of government, especially to the doctrine that no misconduct and no dispossession can forfeit the right of a monarch or his heirs to the throne, and to the obedience of the people. To rights.

   1. In a direct line; straight. [R.]
      --Woodward.

   2. At once; directly. [Obs. or Colloq.]
      --Swift.

      To set to rights, To put to rights, to put in good order; to adjust; to regulate, as what is out of order.

      Writ of right (Law), a writ which lay to recover lands in fee simple, unjustly withheld from the true owner.
      --Blackstone.

prep.phr. (context idiomatic English) properly, in justice.

adv. with reason or justice [syn: properly]