charter

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A special privilege, immunity, or exemption.

   My mother, / Who has a charter to extol her blood, / When she does praise me, grieves me.

2. 2
   noun

   a provision whose unintended consequence would be to encourage an undesirable activity

   In what Derbyshire police say amounts to a "thieves' charter," three judges ruled that because the car's identity had been changed it was impossible to trace the legal owner and therefore the person found in possession of it was entitled to keep it.

3. 3
   noun

   a document incorporating an institution and specifying its rights

4. 4
   noun

   a contract to hire or lease transportation

5. 5
   verb

   to engage for service under a term of contract

6. 6
   verb

   to grant a charter to

7. 7
   verb

   to hold under a lease or rental agreement

8. 8
   noun

   A document issued by some authority, creating a public or private institution, and defining its purposes and privileges.

Etymology

From Middle English charter, chartre, borrowed from Old French chartre, from Latin chartula (diminutive of charta). See chart. Doublet of chartula.