SION

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

SIONAuthored
The Law Mind • 370 words
Definition
An obsolete term appearing in older English legal records and pleadings, used as a contracted or abbreviated form of "session" — particularly in references to courts of session or sittings of a court. The contraction appears most commonly in manuscript records and early printed legal instruments where space economy or scribal convention governed usage. In some historical sources, "sion" also appears as a suffix element in terms derived from Latin or French legal vocabulary, though these instances are distinct from its use as a standalone contraction.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with manuscript court records, plea rolls, or early American and English legal instruments should be alert to "sion" as a contraction or abbreviation that may interrupt comprehension of an otherwise legible document. Misreading or failing to expand the abbreviation can obscure which court or which sitting of a court is being referenced — a consequential error when tracing jurisdiction or establishing the procedural posture of a historical case. The term carries essentially no independent legal significance in modern practice and does not appear in current statutory or judicial usage. Its relevance is archival and paleographic rather than doctrinal. Researchers consulting Rapalje & Lawrence will find it treated briefly, as the compilers included it primarily as an aid to readers encountering period records rather than as a term of art with substantive content.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole shelf source to record "sion" as a discrete entry. The compilers present it in the context of archaic abbreviations and contractions common to English legal records, consistent with their general practice of flagging terms that would confuse American practitioners encountering older English materials. No other standard historical legal dictionary — not Bouvier, not Black's early editions — carries a standalone entry for "sion," which itself indicates the term's narrow, archival function. The absence from those dictionaries is not a gap so much as a reflection that the term was recognized as a scribal artifact rather than a legal concept requiring doctrinal exposition.
Related Terms
Session — Court of Session — Sittings — Term (court calendar) — Abbreviation (legal records) — Plea rolls
SIONmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
The code of honor agreed on by mut- ual understanding and tacitly accepted by members of the legal profession, especially by the bar. Wharton. Eum qui nocentem infamat, non est æquum et bonum ob eam rem condem- nari; delicta enim nocentium nota esse oportet et expedit. It is not just and proper that he who speaks ill of a bad man should be condemned on that account; for it is fitting and expedient that the crimes of bad men should be known. Dig. 47, 10, 17; 1 Bl. Comm. 125.
SIONmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
A covenant is said to "run with
SIONmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
In criminal cases, when the offence is a cumulative one, consisting itself in the commission of a number of acts, evidence of those acts is not only admissible, but essential to support the charge. On an in- dictment against a defendant for a conspir- acy to cause himself to be believed a man of large property, for the purpose of de- frauding tradesmen after proof of a repre- sentation to one tradesman, evidence may thereupon be given of a representation to another tradesman at a different time; 1 Campb. 399; 2 Day 205; 1 Johns. 99. To prove the guilty knowledge of a pris- oner with regard to the transaction in ques- tion, evidence of other offences of the same kind committed by the prisoner, though not charged in the indictment, is admis- sible against him; as, in the case where a prisoner had passed a counterfeit dollar, evi- dence that he had other counterfeit dollars in his possession is evidence to prove the guilty knowledge; 2 Const. 758, 776; 1 Bail. 300; 2 Leigh 745; 1 Wheel. Cr. Cas. 415; Russ. & R. 132; 5 Rand. 701. The substance of the issue joined between the parties must be proved; 1 Phill. Ev. 100; Tayl. Ev. 233. Under this rule will be considered the quantity of evidence required to support particular averments in the dec- laration or indictment. And, first, of civil cases. 1. It is a fatal variance in a contract if it appear that a party who ought to have been joined as plaintiff has been omitted; 1 Saund. 291 h, n.; 2 Term 282; and so where a bill for specific performance alleges the execution of a contract in a certain year, and the proof shows that it was made in another; 85 Ala. 286. But it is no variance to omit a person who might have been joined as defendant; because the non-joinder ought to have been pleaded in abatement; 1 Saund. 291 d, n. 2. The consideration of the con- tract must be proved; but it is not neces- sary for the plaintiff to set out in his dec- laration, or prove on the trial, the several parts of a contract consisting of distinct and collateral provisions: it is sufficient to state so much of the contract as contains the entire consideration of the act, and the entire act to be done in virtue of such con- sideration, including the time, manner, and other circumstances of its performance; 6 East 568: 4 B. & Ald. 387. Second. In criminal cases, it may be laid down that it is, in general, sufficient to prove what constitutes the offence. 1. It is enough to prove so much of the indictment as shows that the defendant has committed a substantive crime therein specified: 2 Campb. 585: 1 H. & J. 427. See 78 Ga. 98: 62 Mich. 297. If a man be indicted for robbery, he may be found guilty of larceny and not guilty of the robbery; 2 Hale. PÍ.
Sionname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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Alternative spelling of Zion.
Sionname
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 municipality and town, the capital of Valais canton, Switzerland.

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