equity Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the difference between the market value of a property and the claims held against it
  2. noun the ownership interest of shareholders in a corporation
  3. noun conformity with rules or standards
    fairness.
    • the judge recognized the fairness of my claim

WordNet

Eq"ui*ty noun
Etymology
F. équité, L. aequitas, fr. aequus even, equal. See Equal.
Wordforms
plural Equities
Definitions
  1. Equality of rights; natural justice or right; the giving, or desiring to give, to each man his due, according to reason, and the law of God to man; fairness in determination of conflicting claims; impartiality.
    Christianity secures both the private interests of men and the public peace, enforcing all justice and equity. Tillotson.
  2. (Law) An equitable claim; an equity of redemption; as, an equity to a settlement, or wife's equity, etc.
    I consider the wife's equity to be too well settled to be shaken. Kent.
  3. (Law) A system of jurisprudence, supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of it.
    Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application. Macaulay.
    ✍ Equitable jurisprudence in England and in the United States grew up from the inadequacy of common-law forms to secure justice in all cases; and this led to distinct courts by which equity was applied in the way of injunctions, bills of discovery, bills for specified performance, and other processes by which the merits of a case could be reached more summarily or more effectively than by common-law suits. By the recent English Judicature Act (1873), however, the English judges are bound to give effect, in common-law suits, to all equitable rights and remedies; and when the rules of equity and of common law, in any particular case, conflict, the rules of equity are to prevail. In many jurisdictions in the United States, equity and common law are thus blended; in others distinct equity tribunals are still maintained. See Chancery. Blackstone. Syn. -- Right; justice; impartiality; rectitude; fairness; honesty; uprightness. See Justice.

Webster 1913