Device, in Heraldry, Painting, and Sculpture, any emblem used to represent a certain family, person, action, or quality, with a suitable motto applied in a figurative sense.

The Italians have reduced the making of devises into an art, some of the principal laws of which are, that there shall be nothing extravagant or monstrous in the figures; that figures shall never be joined which have no relation or affinity with one another, excepting some whimsical unions established in ancient fables, which custom has authorized; that the human body shall never be used; that the fewer figures so much the better; and that the motto shall be every way suitable.

Law, the act by which a person bequeathes his lands or tenements to another by his last will or testament.