The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deodand \De"o*dand`\, n. [LL. deodandum, fr. L. Deo dandum to be given to God.] (Old Eng. Law) A personal chattel which had caused the death of a person, and for that reason was given to God, that is, forfeited to the crown, to be applied to pious uses, and distributed in alms by the high almoner. Thus, if a cart ran over a man and killed him, it was forfeited as a deodand.
Note: Deodands are unknown in American law, and in 1846 were abolished in England.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1520s, from Anglo-French deodande (late 13c.), from Medieval Latin deodandum, from Deo dandum "a thing to be given to God," from dative of deus "god" (see Zeus) + neuter gerundive of dare "to give" (see date (n.1)). In English law, "a personal chattel which, having been the immediate cause of the death of a person, was forfeited to the Crown to be applied to pious uses." Abolished 1846.
Wiktionary
n. (context obsolete legal English) An object forfeited by the state (and supposedly given to God) because it had caused the death of a person
Wikipedia
Deodand is a thing forfeited or given to God, specifically, in law, an object or instrument which becomes forfeit because it has caused a person's death.
The English common law of deodands traces back to the 11th century and was applied, on and off, until Parliament finally abolished it in 1846. Under this law, a chattel (i.e. some personal property, such as a horse or a hay stack) was considered a deodand whenever a coroner's jury decided that it had caused the death of a human being. In theory, deodands were forfeit to the crown, which was supposed to sell the chattel and then apply the profits to some pious use. (The term deodand derives from the Latin phrase "deo dandum" which means "to be given to God.") In reality, the juries who decided that a particular animal or object was a deodand also appraised its value and the owners were expected to pay a fine equal to the value of the deodand. If the owner could not pay the deodand, his township was held responsible.
Usage examples of "deodand".
In the shadow of a balcony a girl barbarian of East Almery embraced a man blackened and in leather harness as a Deodand of the forest.
It was a Deodand, formed and featured like a handsome man, finely muscled, but with a dead black lusterless skin and long slit eyes.
Magnatz, Chun the Inevitable, deodands, and leucomorphs is something only an aged mandarin could distinguish.
Around all these autochthons, real and self-imagined, were a score of other figures not less absurd—officers dressed as women and women dressed as soldiers, eclectics as fraudulent as the autochthons, gymnosophists, ablegates and their acolytes, eremites, eidolons, zoanthrops half beast and half human, and deodands and remontados in picturesque rags, with eyes painted wild.
Beyond is the realm of Magnatz, beside whom the deodands appear as angels of mercy, if a tenth of the rumors are true.
As long ago as Bracton, /1/ in case a man was slain, the coroner was to value the object causing the death, and that was to be forfeited sa deodand "pro rege.