Count
(Count), n. [F. conte and compte, with different meanings, fr. L. computus a computation, fr.
computare. See Count, v. t.]
1. The act of numbering; reckoning; also, the number ascertained by counting.
Of blessed saints for to increase the count.
Spenser.
By this count, I shall be much in years.
Shak.
2. An object of interest or account; value; estimation. [Obs.] "All his care and count." Spenser.
3. (Law) A formal statement of the plaintiff's case in court; in a more technical and correct sense, a
particular allegation or charge in a declaration or indictment, separately setting forth the cause of action
or prosecution. Wharton.
In the old law books, count was used synonymously with declaration. When the plaintiff has but a
single cause of action, and makes but one statement of it, that statement is called indifferently count
or declaration, most generally, however, the latter. But where the suit embraces several causes, or the
plaintiff makes several different statements of the same cause of action, each statement is called a count,
and all of them combined, a declaration. Bouvier. Wharton.
Count
(Count), n. [F. conte, fr. L. comes, comitis, associate, companion, one of the imperial court or
train, properly, one who goes with another; com- + ire to go, akin to Skr. i to go.] A nobleman on the
continent of Europe, equal in rank to an English earl.
Though the tittle Count has never been introduced into Britain, the wives of Earls have, from the earliest
period of its history, been designated as Countesses. Brande & C.
Count palatine. (a) Formerly, the proprietor of a county who possessed royal prerogatives within his
county, as did the Earl of Chester, the Bishop of Durham, and the Duke of Lancaster. [Eng.] See County
palatine, under County. (b) Originally, a high judicial officer of the German emperors; afterward, the
holder of a fief, to whom was granted the right to exercise certain imperial powers within his own domains.
[Germany]
