CHANCER

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

CHANCERAuthored
The Law Mind • 692 words
Definition
To chancer (verb): In English equity practice, to adjust or moderate a claim, judgment, or demand in an equitable manner. The term describes the act of bringing a matter before a court of chancery—or applying chancery principles—to temper a strict legal result with equitable relief. The term appears most naturally as a verb in older English legal usage, meaning to subject a matter to the moderating jurisdiction of equity, particularly where the strict application of common law would produce an unjust outcome.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A scheming opportunist; someone who takes calculated risks or exploits situations for personal gain. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded as a separate entry; the colloquial sense of a risk-taker or opportunist developed in British vernacular. The gap here is sharp. In ordinary modern English, a "chancer" is a person of dubious reliability who seizes unearned advantage. In law, "to chancer" carries no such moral reproach—it is a procedural and equitable act: the adjustment of a legal claim through chancery principles. A researcher encountering the term in a legal source should resist importing the colloquial flavor entirely.
Common Confusion
The term is occasionally confused with references to the Chancellor or the Court of Chancery as institutions. "To chancer" describes the act of equitable adjustment; it does not name the court or the officer. Similarly, it should not be conflated with "to chance," meaning merely to risk or happen upon something. The legal usage is precise: it involves deliberate equitable moderation of a legal result, not mere happenstance.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard in historical legal sources. It is rare, distinctly English in origin, and almost entirely absent from American legal practice and American legal dictionaries. Researchers working in English equity records, chancery pleadings, or treatises on equitable jurisdiction from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries may encounter it; researchers working in American sources almost certainly will not. The critical trap is the colloquial modern meaning. A researcher pulling the term from a non-legal source—or from a legal source written with some looseness—may misread an equitable procedural reference as a character judgment. The two meanings are entirely unrelated in origin and usage. Because the term survived primarily in English practice and is thinly documented even there, it will not appear in standard American legal indexes or digests. Searches in the Law Mind corpus should focus on English equity materials, chancery records, and treatises specifically addressing the moderating function of equity over common law judgments. The connection to charters of the English universities referenced in Bouvier's surrounding text is incidental—those passages concern the privileges of Oxford and Cambridge and are not definitionally related to the term itself.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the most direct legal definition on record: "To adjust in an equitable manner. English." The brevity is notable. Bouvier treats the term as self-evident to practitioners familiar with chancery jurisdiction, offering no elaboration, no citation to cases, and no discussion of scope. This suggests the term was already receding from active American legal usage at the time of Bouvier's compilation, preserved as a term of art rather than a living procedural expression. No other major historical legal dictionaries—not Black's, not Burrill's, not Tomlin's—carry a robust independent entry for the term. This lacuna itself is informative: the term belongs to a stratum of equity vocabulary that was more current in English practice than in the American common law tradition that drew on it.
Jurisdictional Note
"Chancer" as a legal term is English in origin and application. It reflects the historical separation of law and equity in the English court system—a division that American jurisdictions modified or merged at varying points. In American practice, where law and equity were fused in most jurisdictions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the term has no practical footing.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Equity Practice; Courts of Chancery.
Related Terms
Chancellor | Chancery | Court of Chancery | Equity | Equitable Relief | Equitable Jurisdiction | Moderation (equity) | Common Law and EquityMerger of
CHANCERmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
c. 29, whereby the legislature recognized and confirmed all the charters of the two universities, and those of the 14 Henry VIII. and 8 Eliz. by name (18 Eliz. c. 29); 16 Q. B. D. 761 (Oxford), 12 East 12 (Cambridge), which act established the privileges of these universities without any doubt or opposi- tion. It is to be observed, however, that the privilege can be claimed only on behalf of members who are defendants, and when an action in the High Court is brought against such member the university enters a claim of conusance, that is, claims the cognizance of the matter, whereupon the action is withdrawn from the High Court and transferred to the University Court; 16 Q. B. D. 761. But as regards the Univer- sity of Cambridge the jurisdiction appears to be no longer exclusive; 19 & 20 Vict. cxvii. § 18; and it attaches only when both parties are scholars or privileged persons and the cause of action arose in Cambridge or its suburbs. Procedure in these courts was usually regulated according to the laws of the civil- ians, subject to specific rules made by the vice-chancellor, with the approval of three of her Majesty's judges. See (as to Oxford) 25 & 26 Vict. c 26, § 12. Under the charter of Henry VIII. the chancellor and vice- chancellor and the deputy of such vice- chancellor are justices of the peace for the counties of Oxford and Berks, which juris- diction has been recently confirmed in them by 49 & 50 Vict. c. 81; 3 Steph. Com. 325. The courts of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have a criminal as well as a civil jurisdiction, and this of an extensive kind. The chancellor's court has authority to determine all offences which are misde- meanors only, when committed by a mem- ber of the university. And even treason, felony, and mayhem, if found to have been committed by any member thereof, may be tried in the court of the Lord High Steward of the University. A similar jurisdiction is enjoyed by the University of Cambridge. See Bac. Abr. tit. Universities. The right was granted under Henry IV., confirmed by 13 Eliz. c. 29, which charter provides, that a scholar or other privileged person be tried before the high steward of the university or his deputy, who is to be nominated by the chancellor of the univer- sity for the time being, but such high stew- ard must be approved by the Lord High Chancellor of England; and a special com- mission is given him under the great seal. The judge of the chancellor's court at Oxford was a vice-chancellor, with a deputy or assessor. An appeal lay from his sen- tence to delegates appointed by the congre- gation, thence to delegates appointed by the house of convocation, and thence, in case of any disagreement only, to judges delegates appointed by the crown under the great seal in chancery; 3 Steph. Com., 11th ed. 325. Proceedings in these courts are now gov- erned by the common and statute law of the realm; Stat. 17 & 18 Vict. c. 81, § 45; 18 & 19 Vict. c. 36; 19 & 20 Vict. cc. 31, 95; 20 & 21 Vict. c. 25.
CHANCERmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
To adjust in an equitable manner. English.
chancernoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A scheming opportunist.

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