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ADOPTIVE ARMS

Volume 8 · 77 words · 1810 Edition

are those which a person enjoys by the gift or concession of another, and to which he was not otherwise entitled. They stand contradistinguished from arms of alliance.

We sometimes meet with adoptive heir, by way of opposition to natural heir; and adoptive gods, by way of contradiction to domestic ones. The Romans, notwithstanding the number of their domestic, had their adoptive gods, taken chiefly from the Egyptians: such were Isis, Osiris, Anubis, Apis, Harpocrates, and Canopus.