COURT, in a law sense, the place where judges distribute justice, or exercise jurisdiction: also the assembly of judges, jury, &c. in that place.
Courts are divided into superior and inferior, and into courts of record and bare courts: again, courts are either such as are held in the king's name, as all the ordinary courts; or where the precepts are issued in the name of the judge, as the admiral's court.
The superior courts are those of the king's-bench, the common-pleas, the exchequer, and the court of chancery. See KING'S-BENCH, COMMON-PLEAS, EXCHEQUER, and CHANCERY.
A court of record is that which has a power to hold plea, according to the course of the common law, of real, personal, and mixt actions; where the debt or damage is forty shillings, or above, as the court of King's Bench, &c.