Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Fwd: chattel: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2013/10/22
Subject: chattel: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Tuesday, October 22, 2013

chattel \CHAT-l\, noun:

1. Law. a movable article of personal property.
2. any article of tangible property other than land, buildings, and other things annexed to land.
3. a slave.

"Mr. Price has instructed me to visit with you and make arrangements for a transfer of chattel to the bank sufficient to cover the amount of "—he looked down at his clipboard— "one thousand dollars even."
-- Will Weaver, Red Earth White Earth, 1986

But now! Gervase himself had not seemed a very important part of that triumph a little while ago. He had been a chattel of hers, a piece of property as much her own as her parasol.
-- Margaret Oliphant, The Cuckoo in the Nest, 1892

Chattel came to English in the 1400s and shares a root with the word cattle.

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