MAIHEM, or MAYHEM, in Law, a wound by which a person loses the use of a member that might have been a defence to him; as when a bone is broken, a foot, hand, or other member cut off, or an eye put out; though the cutting off an ear or nose, or breaking the hinder teeth, was formerly held to be no maim. It was enacted by the statute 22 and 23 Car. II. that if any person, from malice aforethought, should disable any limb or member of any of the king's subjects, with an intent to disfigure him, the offender, with his aiders and abettors, should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy; but no such attainder was to corrupt the blood, or to occasion forfeiture of lands. By Lord Ellenborough's act, cutting and maiming to the danger of life or limb is made a capital felony.