charter

Pluralcharters

Formscharters, chartering, chartered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A formal document issued by an authority that creates a public or private institution and defines its purposes and privileges.

   The university was founded under a royal charter granted in 1209.

   Delegates met to revise the city's charter and expand the council's powers.

   Similarconstitution

   Note

   The founding sense, and the one the word's history explains best. Middle English charter came through Old French chartre from Latin chartula, a diminutive of charta, the same root behind chart. Royal charters historically founded boroughs, universities and trading companies. A charter is granted to the body it creates, and the institution then exists under it. That is why a college is said to be founded under a royal charter.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A document issued by an authority that confers rights and privileges on a person, corporation, or other body.

   The colony's founders obtained a charter from the Crown granting trading rights.

   Federal regulators approved the company's banking charter last spring.

   Similarlicense, franchise

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To lease or hire something, such as a ship, bus, or aircraft, by charter.

   Investors can charter the yacht by the week during summer.

   The band chartered a jet for the overseas tour.

   Similarhire, rent, lease

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The temporary hiring or leasing of a vehicle such as a bus, boat, or aircraft.

   The team arranged a charter to fly directly to the tournament.

   Private charters of the yacht cost several thousand dollars a day.

   Similarhire, rental, lease

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To grant a charter to, or to establish by means of a charter.

   The legislature voted to charter a new state university.

   Congress chartered the bank in 1791 over fierce opposition.

   Similarestablish, incorporate, found, license

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A business contract to hire a ship, or space aboard one.

   The shipping line negotiated a six-month charter for the tanker.

   Under the charter, the exporter controls two hundred container slots on each voyage.

   Similarlease

7. 7
   adjective

   Leased or hired for temporary use.

   A charter plane flew the band between festival stops.

   Local captains offer charter fishing trips from the harbor.

   Similarleased

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A special privilege, immunity, or exemption enjoyed by a person or group.

   Wealth is not a charter to ignore the law.

   Her long friendship with the family gave her a charter to speak plainly.

   Similarlicense, right, privilege, warrant

   Note

   Here the document has dissolved into the privilege itself, with no paper behind it. It usually takes an infinitive, as in a charter to speak or a charter to extol. Shakespeare's Coriolanus uses it this way: "My mother, / Who has a charter to extol her blood." In a negative it carries a reproach. Saying wealth is no charter to ignore the law denies that any such license exists.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A deed; a formal written document that records a legal contract.

   The abbey's records include a charter conveying three fields to the monks.

   Historians used the wax seal to date the charter recording the manor's sale.

   Similardeed

10. 10
    nounderogatoryUKcountable

    A law or provision that would unintentionally give free rein to some undesirable activity.

    Opponents branded the surveillance bill a snoopers' charter.

    MPs warned that the loophole would become a tax dodgers' charter.

    Note

    British critics use this as a weapon against a law or court ruling that seems to reward wrongdoing. It almost never stands alone. A noun naming the beneficiaries or their activity comes first, usually possessive: a thieves' charter, a snoopers' charter. The jibe mocks the rule as a special privilege granted to the wrong people. It is an accusation rather than a description, so neutral prose should present it as someone's charge.

11. 11
    verbCanadatransitive

    Of a peace officer: to inform an arrested person of their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms at the time of arrest.

    Officers are trained to charter detainees immediately upon arrest.

    The constable chartered the suspect before placing him in the cruiser.

    Note

    A verb made from the name of a single document, used in Canadian policing and courts. An officer charters a detainee by telling them the rights guaranteed by section 10 of the Charter. These include the reasons for the arrest and the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay. It is professional jargon. Outside law enforcement, it is clearer to say the person was informed of their rights.

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