1. A building in which courts of law are held.
1483. Cath. Angl., 79. A Cowrthouse.
1776. Virginia Hist. Coll., 31 March, VI. 159. To be Call’d on the Parade Nere the Court House to-morrow.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxvii. She had looked anxiously for Butler in the court-house.
1875. W. M‘Ilwraith, Guide to Wigtownshire, 33. At the east side of the Square [in Wigtown] is the new Court-house.
2. A manorial dwelling: cf. COURT sb.1 2. (South of Eng.)
1857. G. Oliver, Collect. Hist. Cath. Relig. in Cornwall, etc. 60. Cannington … Lord Clifford frequently resided at its noble Court-house.
3. U.S. (chiefly southern). = County seat (see COUNTY1 8 b).
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 80. She went to a Sunday-school at the Court House.
1860. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Court-House. The county towns of Virginia are often called so without regard to their proper names. Thus Providence, the county town of Fairfax, is unknown by that name, and passes as Fairfax Court-House.
1887. C. W. Super, in Nation (N. Y.), 27 Oct., 331/3. The word court-house for county-seat is probably of Southern origin, though there are at least two county-seats in Ohio that still retain this designation.
