Eq'ui-ty, n.

(ĕk'wĭ-tý), n. [Fr. équité, Pr. equitat, It. equità, Sp. equidad, Pg. equidade, Lat. æquitas, from æquus, even, equal.]

1Sense 1. Justice; impartiality; the giving, or desiring to give, to each man his due, according to reason, and the law of God to man;—distinguished from justice in requiring a more perfect standard than any positive enactment or custom; the quality of being equal-handed or just; even-handed action.

Christianity secures both the private interests of men and the public peace, enforcing all justice and equity. Tillotson.

2Sense 2. (Law.) An equitable claim.

I consider the wife's equity to be too well settled to be shaken. Kent.

3Sense 3. A system of jurisprudence administered in courts of equity, supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of it,—the object of which is to supply the deficiencies of the courts of law, and render the administration of justice more complete, by affording relief where the courts of law, in consequence of imperfections in their machinery, or of their too rigid adherence to peculiar forms, are incompetent to give it, or to give it with effect, whereby certain classes of rights become excluded from the benefit of their protection.

Blackstone. Wharton. Brande.

Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application. Macaulay.