BRIBE, a reward given to pervert the judgment. The word is French, bribe, which originally denotes a bit, fragment, or relic of meat taken off the table; so that bribe imports as much as panis mendicatus, and still keeps up the idea of the matter of which bribes anciently consisted. Hence also the Spaniards use bribar and brivar for begging; and brivia, brivoneria, and brivonismo, for beggary. In the writers of the middle ages, a bribe given to a judge is called quato litis, and the receiver campi particeps, or cambi particeps; because the spoils of the field, or the profits of the cause, were thus shared with the giver.