in Law, a species of maintenance, and punished in the same manner, being a bargain with the plaintiff or defendant campum partire, "to divide the land," or other matter sued for, between them, if they prevail at law; and in the mean time the champerter is to carry on the party's suit at his own expense. This champerter, in the French law, signifies a similar division of profits, being a part of the crop annually due to the landlord by bargain or custom. In our sense of the word, it signifies the purchasing of a suit, or right of suing; a practice so much abhorred by our law, that it is one main reason why a chose in action, or thing of which one hath the right but not the possession, is not assignable in common law, because no man should purchase any pretence to sue in another's right.