Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
DELICT, n. Sc. law: “a wrong, nowadays always in a civil sense though formerly comprising crime too” (Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 28).Sc. 1754 J. Erskine Princ. Law Scot. i. vii. 21:
A minor cannot be restored against his own delict or fraud, e.g. if he should induce one to bargain with him, by telling him he was major.Sc. 1824 Scott Redgauntlet i.:
I will make my way into Court, even if it should cost me the committing a delict, or at least a quasi delict.Sc. 1890 Bell Dict. Law Scot. 308:
Delinquencies, considered as the grounds of civil claims for reparation, are divided into delicts and quasi delicts — the former being offences committed with a malicious or criminal purpose, the latter including injuries arising from a degree of culpable negligence, amounting almost to crime, and inferring an obligation to repair the injury, although there may be no ground for a criminal prosecution.
