Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
District \Dis"trict\, n. [LL. districtus district, fr. L. districtus, p. p. of distringere: cf. F. district. See Distrain.]
(Feudal Law) The territory within which the lord has the power of coercing and punishing.
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A division of territory; a defined portion of a state, town, or city, etc., made for administrative, electoral, or other purposes; as, a congressional district, judicial district, land district, school district, etc.
To exercise exclusive legislation . . . over such district not exceeding ten miles square.
--The Constitution of the United States. -
Any portion of territory of undefined extent; a region; a country; a tract.
These districts which between the tropics lie.
--Blackstone.Congressional district. See under Congressional.
District attorney, the prosecuting officer of a district or district court.
District court, a subordinate municipal, state, or United States tribunal, having jurisdiction in certain cases within a judicial district.
District judge, one who presides over a district court.
District school, a public school for the children within a school district. [U.S.]
Syn: Division; circuit; quarter; province; tract; region; country.
Wiktionary
n. (context American English) The title of the local public official who represents the government in the prosecution of alleged criminals.
WordNet
n. an official prosecutor for a judicial district [syn: DA]
Wikipedia
The District Attorney (DA) represents the state government in the prosecution of criminal offenses, and is the chief law enforcement officer and legal officer of that state's jurisdiction.
The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case against an individual who is suspected of breaking the law, initiating and directing further criminal investigations, guiding and recommending the sentencing of offenders, and are the only attorneys allowed to participate in grand jury proceedings.
The District Attorney supervises a staff of prosecutors, Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs), who represent the State and prosecute criminals on behalf of the District Attorney. Depending upon the system in place, DAs may be appointed by the chief executive of the jurisdiction or elected by the voters of the jurisdiction.
The title of “District Attorney” and "Assistant District Attorney", is the most commonly given official name to state prosecutors, and is used by several major jurisdictions within the United States, such as New York, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Oklahoma.
Usage examples of "district attorney".
He stepped to the district attorney's desk and leaned over it cajolingly.
The district attorney therefore took the bull by the horns and challenged Parker to make from memory a copy of the signature, and, much as he had suspected, the witness produced a very good one.
Gordon Novel, an investigator who used to work for District Attorney Jim Garrison, spent a week in Las Vegas attempting to talk with the former security guard.
On the other hand, the person who was ringing that doorbell isn't going to be anxious to come forward and admit being in the vicinity of the murder at the time it was committed, but when he is once run to earth by the district attorney, he's going to tell his story eagerly enough.
But if I'm able to give the district attorney accurate information about certain things connected with Monday night, there'll be no danger of the police being sent to look for you.
Add on the mysterious disappearance of Los Angeles District Attorney Robert Gallaudet and the November 19 Herrick family slayings, still unsolved, and you have what Governor Goodwin J.
There must have been sufficient time for the murder to have been committed because she _did_ go to the yacht and she _did_ fire the bullet from that gun--if the district attorney's theory is right and you switched guns on her--and I take it that the theory is right.
Last night the District Attorney uncovered evidence which made him decide to put a first degree murder rap on her.
But one of the other reporters had seen what happened, and somehow the Federal District Attorney got tipped off to where I was.
John Redfern had been acting district attorney in Mark Storm's absence.
Bynum was an attorney who had been a prosecutor in the Boulder district attorney’.
About $5000 worth, they said -- small potatoes, compared to the bomb that blew a wall out of the District Attorney's office last fall after Salazar died.
But I wasn't thinking of Arnesson, or the arrest of the culprit, or the triumph of the District Attorney's office.
The real reason, which didn't occur to me at the time, was that I was still wearing my ID/badge from the District Attorneys Conference.