privy

PRIV'Y, a. [L. privus. See Private.]

1. Private; pertaining to some person exclusively; assigned to private uses; not public; as the privy purse; the privy confer of a king.

2. Secret; clandestine; not open or public; as a privy attempt to kill one.

3. Private; appropriated to retirement; not shown; not open for the admission of company; as a privy chamber. Ezek.21.

4. Privately knowing; admitted to the participation of knowledge with another of a secret transaction.

He would rather lose half of his kingdom than be privy to such a secret.

Myself am one made privy to the plot.

His wife also being privy to it. Acts.5.

5. Admitted to secrets of state. The privy council of a king consists of a number of distinguished persons selected by him to advice him in the administration of the government.

A privy verdict, is one given to the judge out of court, which is of no force unless afterward affirmed by a public verdict in court.

PRIV'Y, n. In law, a partaker; a person having an interest in any action or thing; as a privy in blood. Privies are of four kinds; privies in blood, as the heir to his father; privies in representation, as executors and administrators to the deceased; privies in estate, as he in reversion and he in remainder; donor and donee; lessor and lessee; privy in tenure, as the lord in escheat.

1. A necessary house.

Privy chamber, in Great Britain, the private apartment in a royal residence or mansion. Gentlemen of the privy chamber are servants of the king who are to wait and attend on him and the queen at court, in their diversions, &c. They are forty eight in number, under the lord chamberlain.