The Collaborative International Dictionary
Petition \Pe*ti"tion\, n. [F. p['e]tition, L. petitio, fr. petere, petitum, to beg, ask, seek; perh. akin to E. feather, or find.]
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A prayer; a supplication; an imploration; an entreaty; especially, a request of a solemn or formal kind; a prayer to the Supreme Being, or to a person of superior power, rank, or authority; also, a single clause in such a prayer.
A house of prayer and petition for thy people.
--1 Macc. vii. 37.This last petition heard of all her prayer.
--Dryden. -
A formal written request addressed to an official person, or to an organized body, having power to grant it; specifically (Law), a supplication to government, in either of its branches, for the granting of a particular grace or right; -- in distinction from a memorial, which calls certain facts to mind; also, the written document.
Petition of right (Law), a petition to obtain possession or restitution of property, either real or personal, from the Crown, which suggests such a title as controverts the title of the Crown, grounded on facts disclosed in the petition itself.
--Mozley & W.The Petition of Right (Eng. Hist.), the parliamentary declaration of the rights of the people, assented to by Charles I.
Usage examples of "the petition of right".
The Parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid before him one of the great documents of history, which is called the PETITION OF RIGHT, requiring that the free men of England should no longer be called upon to lend the King money, and should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so.