Obscure terms from legal opinions

In a recent Practical Lawyer column, Villanova professor Michael G. Walsh collected some amusing terms from legal opinions. Walsh’s list of obscure words includes exlex, meaning outlaw, found in a nineteenth-century New York case, and dunny, referring to an outhouse, found in Kirkland v. United States, 930 F. Supp. 1443, 1448 (D. Colo. 1996).  Walsh's Grammatical Lawyer column is titled Forgotten English (Part 2); check it out to read about courts' use of other obscure terms, including gavelkind, woad, and bung your eye.

(jdf)