CHALLENGE
noun
Definitions
- 1. An invitation to engage in a contest or controversy of any kind; a defiance; specifically, a summons to fight a duel; also, the letter or message conveying the summons. A challenge to controversy. Goldsmith.
- 2. The act of a sentry in halting any one who appears at his post, and demanding the countersign.
- 3. A claim or demand. [Obs.] There must be no challenge of superiority. Collier.
- 4. The opening and crying of hounds at first finding the scent of their game.
- 5. An exception to a juror or to a member of a court martial, coupled with a demand that he should be held incompetent to act; the claim of a party that a certain person or persons shall not sit in trial upon him or his cause. Blackstone
- 6. An exception to a person as not legally qualifed to vote. The challenge must be made when the ballot is offered. [U. S.] Challenge to the array (Law), an exception to the whole panel. -- Challenge to the favor, the alleging a special cause, the sufficiency of which is to be left to those whose duty and office it is to decide upon it. -- Challenge to the polls, an exception taken to any one or more of the individual jurors returned. -- Peremptory challenge, a privilege sometimes allowed to defendants, of challenging a certain number of jurors (fixed by statute in different States) without assigning any cause. -- Principal challenge, that which the law allows to be sufficient if found to be true.
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Added: October 09, 2025
Updated: October 09, 2025