in Law, an alien made a subject by the king's letters patent; otherwise called donaufon, because his legitimation proceeds ex donatione regis, "from the king's gift."

A denizen is in a kind of middle state between an alien and a natural-born subject, and partakes of both of them. He may take lands by purchase or devise, which an alien may not; but cannot take by inheritance; for his parent, through whom he must claim, being an alien, had no inheritable blood, and therefore could convey none to the son; and, upon a like defect of blood, the issue of a denizen born before denization, cannot inherit to him; but his issue born after may. A denizen is not excused from paying the alien's duty, and some other mercantile burdens. And no denizen can be of the privy-council, or either house of parliament, or have any office of trust civil or military, or be capable of any grant of lands, &c. from the crown.