right 
another line by the shortest way. Right ascension. See 
ascension. Right bower. See bower^. Right cam- 
phor, the camphor produced from the Lauraceee, which 
gives a right polai ization. Right circle, in the stereo- 
graphic projection, a circle represented by a right line. 
Right descenaion, in old outran. See descemion, 4. 
Right hand. See hand. Right hand of fellowship. 
See .fellowship. Right helicoid, moneyt, reason. See 
the nouns. Right-line pen. See pen?. Right solid, 
a solid whose axis is perpendicular to its base, as a right 
prism, pyramid, cone, cylinder, etc. Right sphere, a 
sphere so placed with regard to the horizon or plane of 
projection that the latter is parallel to a meridian or to 
the equator. Right tensor, a dyadic of a form suitable 
to represent a pure strain. Right whale. See whale. 
To put the saddle on the right horse. See saddle. 
= Syn. 2. and 3. Upright, honest, lawful, rightful. 4. 
Correct, meet, appropriate. 
II. n. 1. Rightnesg; conformity to an au- 
thoritative standard ; obedience to or harmony 
with the rules of morality, justice, truth, rea- 
son, propriety, etc.; especially, moral Tightness ; 
justice; integrity; righteousness: opposed to 
wrong. 
Shall even he that hateth right govern ? and wilt thou 
condemn him that is most just? Job v, vi\ . 17. 
But right is might through all the world. 
Emerson, Centennial Poem, Boston. 
2. That which is right, or conforms to rule, 
(a) Right conduct ; a just and good act, or course of ac- 
tion ; anything which justly may or should be done. 
Wrest once the law to your authority ; 
To do a great right, do a little wrong. 
Shale., M. of V., iv. 1. 216. 
For a patriot too cool ; for a drudge disobedient ; 
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. 
Goldsmith, Retaliation. 
With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the 
right. Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address. 
(6) The person, party, or cause which is sustained by 
justice. 
Receive thy lance ; and God defend the right ! 
Shale., Rich. II., i. 3. 101. 
(c) That which accords with truth, fact, or reason ; the 
truth. 
Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight ; 
that 's the even of it. 
Pint. Nym, thou hast spoke the right. 
Shale., Hen. V., ii. 1. 129. 
3. A just claim or title ; a power or privilege 
whereby one may be, do, receive, or enjoy 
something; an authoritative title, whether 
arising through custom, courtesy, reason, hu- 
manity, or morality, or conceded by law. 
Yey schal saue ye kynge hys rythe, and non prejudys 
don a-geyn his lawe in yes ordenaunce. 
English OUdi (E. E. T. S-X p. 30. 
The right of the needy do they not judge. Jer. v. 28. 
The people have a right supreme 
To make their kings ; for kings are made for them. 
Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, i. 409. 
The right divine of kings to govern wrong. 
Pope, Dunciad, iv. 188. 
And why is it, that still 
Man with his lot thus fights ? 
Tis that he makes his will 
The measure of his rights. 
M. Arnold, Empedocles on Etna. 
4. In law, that which any one is entitled to 
have, or to do, or to require from others, within 
the limits prescribed by law (Kent) ; any legal 
consequence which any person, natural or arti- 
ficial, is entitled to insist attaches to a given 
state of facts ; the power recognized by law in 
a person by virtue of which another or others 
are bound to do or forbear toward or in regard 
of him or his interests ; a legally protectable 
interest. In this sense things possess no rights; but 
every person has some rights irrespective of power to 
act or to compel the acts of others, as, for instance, an 
idiot, etc. ; and even the obligations of persons in being, 
in view of the possibility of the future existence of one 
not yet in being, are the subject of what are termed con- 
tingent right*. In this general meaning of right are in- 
cluded (a) the just claim of one to whom another owes 
a duty to have that duty performed ; (ft) the just free- 
dom of a person to do any act not forbidden or to omit any 
act not commanded ; (c) the title or interest which one 
person has in a thing exclusive of other persons ; and (d) 
a power of a person to appoint the disposition of a thing 
in which he has no interest or title. Right has also been 
defined as a legally protected interest. A distinction is 
made between personal and real rights. The former term is 
often used in English law for a right relating to personal, 
the latter for a right relating to real property. But in the 
language of writers on general jurisprudence and on civil 
law, a personal right is a right exclusively against persons 
specifically determined, and a real right is a right availing 
against all persons generally. liy some writers a distinc- 
tion is taken between primary rights and sanctioning 
rights, by the latter being meant the rights of action which 
the law gives to protect the primary rights, such as owner- 
ship, or contracts. 
5. That which is due by just claim ; a rightful 
portion ; one's due or deserts. 
I shall fast the this forward all with fyne othes, 
All the londis to leue that longyn to Troy, 
And our ground to the Grekes graunt as for right. 
Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 7985. 
5178 
Moderate lamentation is the ri : iht of the dead. 
Shale., All's Well, i. 1. 64. 
Honour and admiration are her rights. 
Fletcher (and another), Nice Valour, v. 3. 
Grief claimed his right, and tears their course. 
Scott, L. of the L., iii. 18. 
6f. A fee required ; a charge. 
Qwo-so entrez in-to thys fraternite, he xal paye ye ri/tes 
of ye hows, at his entre, viij. d. 
English Oildi (E. E. T. S.), p. 54. 
7. The outward, front, or most finished surface 
of anything: as, the right of a piece of cloth, a 
coin, etc : opposed to the reverse. 8. The right 
side ; the side or direction opposite to the left. 
On his right 
The radiant image of his glory sat, 
His only Son. Milton, P. L., iii. 62. 
9. Anything, usually one member of a pair, 
shaped or otherwise adapted for a right-hand 
position or use. 
Those [bricks] . . . are termed rights and lefts when 
they are so moulded or ornamented that they cannot be 
used for any corner. C. T. Dams, Bricks and Tiles, p. 78. 
The instrument is made in rights and lefts, so that the 
convex bearing surface may always be next the gum of the 
patient. Sci. Amer., N. S., LXII. 842. 
10. [cop.] In the politics of continental Eu- 
rope, the conservative party: so named from 
their customary position on the right of the 
president in the legislative assembly. 
The occupation of Rome by the Italian troops in 1870, 
and the removal of the Chamber of Deputies from Florence 
to the new capital of united Italy, to a great extent re- 
moved the political differences between the two great par- 
ties, the parliamentary Right and Left. 
Harper's May., LXXVI. 180. 
Absolute rights, those rights which belong to human 
beings as such ; those rights to which corresponds a neg- 
ative obligation of respect on the part of every one. They 
are usually accounted to be three the right of a personal 
security, of personal liberty, and of private property. The 
right of freedom of conscience, if not involved in these 
three, should be added. They are termed absolute, in con- 
tradistinction to those to which corresponds the obliga- 
tion of a particular person to do or forbear from doing 
some act, which are termed relative. At all rights', 
at all points ; in all respects. 
Everich of you shal brynge an hundred knightes, 
Armed for lystes up at atte rightes. 
Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 1. 994. 
Base right, in Scots law, the right which a disponer or 
disposer of feudal property acquires when he dispones It 
to be held under himself and not under his superior. 
Bill of Rights. See ftt3.-By right, (a) In accordance 
with right; rightfully ; properly. Also by rights. 
For swich lawe as man yeveth another wyghte, 
He sholde hiraselven usen it by ryghte. 
Chaucer, Prol. to Man of Law's Tale, 1. 44. 
I should have been a woman by right. 
Shale., As you Like it, iv. 3. 177. 
(ft) By authorization ; by reason or virtue ; because : fol- 
lowed by of. Also in nght. 
The first Place is yours, Timothy, in Right of your Grey 
Hairs. A". Bailey, tr. of Colloquies of Erasmus, 1. 168. 
Then of the moral instinct would she prate, 
And of the rising from the dead, 
As hers by right o/full-accomplish'd Fate. 
Tennyson, Palace of Art. 
Civil Rights Act, Bill, cases. See civil. Commonable 
Rights Compensation Act See compenmt ion. Con- 
junct rights. See conjunct. Contingent rights, such 
rights as are only to come into certain existence on an 
event or a condition which may not happen or he performed 
until some other event may prevent their vesting : as dis- 
tinguished from vested rights, or those in which the right 
to enjoyment, present or prospective, has become the 
property of a particular person or persons as a present in- 
terest, Cootey. Corporeal rights. See corporeal. Cot- 
tage right. See cottage. Declaration of rights, a 
document setting forth the personal righte of individual 
citizens over against the government. Divine right. See 
<Koin. Equal Rights party. See Locofoco, 3. Free 
trade and sailors rights. See free. Inchoate right 
of dower. See dower'-:.- Indivisible rights. See pro 
indiviso. Innominate right. See innominate. In 
one's own right, by absolute right; by inherent or per- 
sonal rather than acquired right : as, a peeress in her own 
right (that is, as distinguished from a peeress by marriage). 
A bride who bad fourteen thousand a year in her own 
right. Trollope, Doctor Thome, xlvii. 
In the right, right; free from error, (a) Upright ; right- 
eous. 
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. 
Pope, Essay on Man, iii. 306. 
(ft) Correct ; not deceived or mistaken as to the truth of a 
matter. 
Now how is it possible to believe that such devout per- 
sons as these are mistaken, and the Sect of the Nazarenes 
only in the right? StiUingfleet, Sermons, II. i. 
I believe you're in the right, major ! 
I see you're in the right. Colman, Jealous Wife, i. 
Joint rights in rem, in civil law, same as condominium. 
Mere right. See merez. Mineral right or rights, 
the right to seek for and possess all the mineral products 
of a given territory: distinguished, in mining regions, 
from the surface right, the privilege of using the surface 
of land, as in farming, building, etc. Natural rights, 
those rights which exist by virtue of natural law, such as 
liberty and security of person and property, as distin- 
right 
uuished from those which arise out of conventional rela- 
tions or positice law. Nominate right. See nominate. 
Of right, matter of rij;ht; dfinamlable as a right, as 
di.stintruislu-d from that which is allowable or not in tilt- 
discretion of the court: as, in an action for damages for a 
tort, jury trial is nf right. Personal rights. See per- 
sonal, and def. 4. Petition Of right, in Eng. law, a pro- 
ceeding resembling an action by which a subject vindicates 
his rights against the crown. See petition. Petitions 
Of Rights Act. See Bontt's Act (a), under act. Pre- 
tensed right, see pretexted. Private rights, private 
rights of way. See private. Public right, in Scots 
feudal law. See public. Public rights, those rights 
which the state possesses over its own subjects, and which 
subjects, in their turn, possess in or against the state. 
Robinson. Real right, in lau', a right of property in a 
subject, or, as it is termed, a jws in re, in virtue of which 
the person vested with the real right may claim possession 
of the subject. Redeemable rights. See redeemable. 
Rental right. See rental. Restitution of conjugal 
rights. See restitution. Right about! See about. 
Right-and-left coupling, a turnbuckle. Right In rem, 
the legal relation between a person and a thing in which 
he has an interest or over which he has a power, as dis- 
tinguished from a right in personam, or the legal relation 
of a person to another who owes him a duty. (But see, for 
the meaning implied in the civil law, the distinction be- 
tween real right and personal right, indicated under def. 4.) 
Right of action, a right which will sustain a civil ac- 
tion ; a right and an infringement or danger of infringe- 
ment of it such as to entitle the possessor of the right to 
apply to a court of justice for relief or redress. Right 
of drip, of eminent domain, of expatriation. See 
drip, domain, etc. Right Of entry. See entry, 10. 
Right of feud, forest, petition, search, succession. 
See feudl, forest, etc. Riparian rights. See riparian. 
To do one right, (a) To do one Justice. 
I doo adiure thee (O great King) by all 
That in the World we sacred count or call, 
To doe me Right. 
Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii.. The Magnificence. 
In earnest. Sir, I am ravished to meet with a friend of 
Mr. Izaac Walton's, and one that does him so much rinkf 
in so good and true a character. 
Cotton, in Walton's Angler, ii. 225. 
(ftt) To pledge one in a toast. [Compare the French phrase 
faire raison d.] 
Why, now you have done me right. [To Silence, seeing 
him take off a bumper.) Shale., 2 Hen. IV., v. 3. 76. 
Ero. Sighing has made me something short-winded. 
Ill pledge y at twice. 
Lys. 'Tis well done ; do me right. 
Chapman, Widow's Tears, iv. 
These glasses contain nothing ; do me 
right, [Takes the bottle. 
As e'er you hope for liberty. 
Magringer, Bondman, ii. 3. 
To have a right, to have a good right, (a) To have 
a moral obligation ; be under a moral necessity : equiva- 
lent to ought. [Colloq.] 
Luvv? what's Invv .' tlum can luvv thy lass an' 'er munny 
too, 
Maakin' 'em goa togither as they'ue good right to do. 
Tennyson, Northern Farmer, 0. S. 
As for spinning, why, you've wasted as much as your 
wage i' the flax you've spoiled learning to spin. And 
> c HI Yc a right to feel that, and not to go about as gaping 
and as thoughtless as if you was beholding to nobody. 
George Eliot, Adam Bede, vi. 
I'm thinkin' . . . that thim Germans have declared a 
war, and we're a right to go home. 
Harper's Weekly, XXXIV. 86. 
(6) To have good reason or cause. Hence (e) To come 
near ; have a narrow escape from : as, I'd a good right to be 
run over by a runaway horse this morning ; I had a right 
to get lost going through the woods. [Colloq. and local.] 
To have right*, to be right. 
For trewely that swete wyght, 
Whan I had wrong and she the ryght, 
She wolde alway so goodely 
Forgive me so debonairely. 
Chaucer, Death of Blanche, 1. 1282. 
"Sir," seide Gawein, "the! haue right to go, for the 
abidinge here for hem is not goode." 
Merlin (E. E. T. S.), iii. 409. 
To put to rights, to arrange in an orderly condition ; 
bring into a normal state ; set in proper order. 
Putting things to rights an occupation he performed 
with exemplary care once a-week. 
Biilwer, My Novel, ii. 3. 
To rights. (at)Inadirectline; directly; hence, straight- 
way ; immediately ; at once. 
These strata failing, the whole tract sinks down to rights 
into the abyss. Woodward. 
[The hull], by reason of many breaches made in the 
bottom and sides, sunk to rights. 
Swift, Gulliver's Travels, ii. 8. 
(6) In the right or proper order: properly; fittingly: now 
rarely used except with the verbs put and set: as, to put a 
room to rights (see above). 
The quen er the day was digt wel to rijtes 
Hendli in that hinde-skyn as swiche bestes were. 
William of Palerne (E. E. T. S.), 1. 3066. 
To set to rights. Same as to put to rights. 
A scamper o'er the breezy wolds 
Sets all to-right*. Browning, Stafford, v. 2. 
Vested rights. See contingent right*. Writ of right, 
an action which had for its object to establish the title to 
real property. It is now abolished, the same object being 
secured by the order of ejectment. = Syn. 2 and 3. Eguitii. 
Law, etc. See justice. 3. Trerogative. 
right (rit).ffrfi-. [Alsodial. rt-ct, So. riclit; < ME. 
rit/lit, ryr/ht. rigt, Tit, f'njlite. ri/iihte, rigte. < AS. 
rilite, rijntc, straight, directly, straightway, 
