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Chance-medley   /tʃæns-mˈɛdli/   Listen
noun
Chance-medley  n.  
1.
(Law) The killing of another in self-defense upon a sudden and unpremeditated encounter. See Chaud-Medley. Note: The term has been sometimes applied to any kind of homicide by misadventure, or to any accidental killing of a person without premeditation or evil intent, but, in strictness, is applicable to such killing as happens in defending one's self against assault.
2.
Luck; chance; accident.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Chance-medley" Quotes from Famous Books



... disputes of this sort that we begin again to see the principle clearly, as I shall venture to lay it down here: that the acts of a number of persons combined are to be judged by their intent. In individual acts the intent is of no importance except as it turns an accident into a crime; chance-medley for instance into murder, or mere asportation into larceny, or ordinary conversation into slander; yet these few instances serve to show how universal is the recognition of intent in the law and how little difficulty it presents. Juries ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... approach a period that is within the recollection of living playgoers. Mr. Donne, lately the Examiner of Plays, writes in one of his essays on the drama: "We have seen 'The Rivals' performed in a sort of chance-medley costume—a century intervening between the respective attires of Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute;" and he adds, "we have seen the same comedy dressed with scrupulous attention to the date of the wigs and hoops; but we doubt whether in any essential respect that excellent play was a gainer by the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... Scantling's son, a boy of ten years old. The end of it is, Tom was instantly pursued, and apprehended; your good uncle, Sir John, was called to take the depositions, and without any remand whatever, committed our good friend for trial. Tom's only chance is to prove that it was a case of chance-medley, or to bring it under manslaughter, as a thing done in a passion, and if he thinks that being employed by you will be any defence, or will show that it was a sudden burst of rage, without premeditation, he will tell the whole story as soon as ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... amendment can hardly be found until we approach a period that is within the recollection of living playgoers. Mr. Donne, lately the Examiner of Plays, writes in one of his essays on the drama: "We have seen 'The Rivals' performed in a sort of chance-medley costume—a century intervening between the respective attires of Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute;" and he adds, "we have seen the same comedy dressed with scrupulous attention to the date of the wigs and hoops; but we doubt whether in any essential respect that excellent play was a gainer by ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... penetrating character first at Jeanie, and then at the Duke. Both sustained it unmoved; Jeanie from total unconsciousness of the offence she had given, and the Duke from his habitual composure. But in his heart he thought, My unlucky protegee has with this luckless answer shot dead, by a kind of chance-medley, her only hope ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott



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