Definition
Glia, as it appears in Burrill's Law Dictionary, is not a legal term. The entry in Burrill under this heading is a transcription or cataloguing anomaly: the definition given — "Wheresoever we shall be in England" — belongs to the Latin phrase UBICUNQUE (or more precisely to the return-style formula of the Court of King's Bench), not to "glia" as a freestanding legal concept. The entry is a misattribution or misindexed fragment, not a genuine term of art.
In modern scientific usage, glia refers to the network of non-neuronal cells that structurally and functionally support nervous system tissue. It has no independent legal meaning.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The network of glial cells that supports nervous system tissue.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not applicable; "glia" as a scientific term postdates Webster's 1913 as a recognized standalone entry.
The gap here is not between common and legal meaning — it is between a scientific term and a legal dictionary entry that has nothing to do with it. The Burrill entry does not engage with glia in any sense, common or scientific. Researchers should not infer a legal meaning from the headword itself.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "glia" as a headword in Burrill should treat it as a cataloguing artifact rather than a discrete legal term. The substantive content Burrill attaches to the entry — the Court of King's Bench return formula and the maxim "Ubicunque est injuria, ibi damnum sequitur" — belongs under UBICUNQUE or under entries addressing the King's Bench as a moveable court. Following the Blackstone citation (3 Bl. Com. 41, 284) and the Fleta citations will lead researchers to the correct doctrinal material about the ambulatory character of the King's Bench, not to anything the headword "glia" independently supports.
If you are researching the King's Bench return style or the legal maxim on injury and damages, navigate directly to those headwords. Do not treat the Burrill "glia" entry as authoritative for any proposition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical legal dictionary source containing this headword. The entry, as reproduced, pairs a Latin-looking headword with content that has no connection to it. The citations Burrill provides — Blackstone's Commentaries Book 3 at pages 41 and 284, and Fleta Book 2 chapters 2 and 64 — are genuine and well-known sources on the Court of King's Bench, its theoretical attachment to the sovereign's person, and its procedural forms. The maxim "Ubicunque est injuria, ibi damnum sequitur" (Wherever there is an injury, there a damage results) is a recognized common-law principle cited in Branch's Principia. None of this material has any relationship to a headword "glia." No other historical legal dictionary — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — carries this headword. The entry should be understood as a typographical or indexing error in the source, not as evidence of a legal concept bearing this name.