King James Bible Dictionary

PRIV'Y, adjective [Latin privus. See Private.]

1. Private; pertaining to some person exclusively; assigned to private uses; not public; as the privy purse; the privy confer of a king.

2. Secret; clandestine; not open or public; as a privy attempt to kill one.

3. Private; appropriated to retirement; not shown; not open for the admission of company; as a privy chamber. Ezekiel 21:14.

4. Privately knowing; admitted to the participation of knowledge with another of a secret transaction.

He would rather lose half of his kingdom than be privy to such a secret.

Myself am one made privy to the plot.

His wife also being privy to it. Acts 5:2.

5. Admitted to secrets of state. The privy council of a king consists of a number of distinguished persons selected by him to advice him in the administration of the government.

A privy verdict, is one given to the judge out of court, which is of no force unless afterward affirmed by a public verdict in court.

PRIV'Y, noun In law, a partaker; a person having an interest in any action or thing; as a privy in blood. Privies are of four kinds; privies in blood, as the heir to his father; privies in representation, as executors and administrators to the deceased; privies in estate, as he in reversion and he in remainder; donor and donee; lessor and lessee; privy in tenure, as the lord in escheat.

1. A necessary house.

Privy chamber, in Great Britain, the private apartment in a royal residence or mansion. Gentlemen of the privy chamber are servants of the king who are to wait and attend on him and the queen at court, in their diversions, etc. They are forty eight in number, under the lord chamberlain.

PRIVY-COUN'SELOR, noun A member of the privy council.

Privy-counselors are made by the king's nomination without patent or grant.

PRIV'Y-SEAL

PRIVY-SIG'NET, noun In England, the seal which the king uses previously in grants, etc. which are to pass the great seal, or which he uses in matters of subordinate consequence, which do not require the great seal.

1. privy-seal is used elliptically for the principal secretary of state, or person entrusted with the privy-seal

The king's sign manual is the warrant to the privy-seal who makes out a writ or warrant thereon to the chancery. The sign manual is the warrant to the privy-seal and the privy-seal is the warrant to the great seal.