Pl. loci. [L. = place.]
1. Place in which something is situated, locality.
1715. Cheyne, Philos. Princ. Relig., II. 118. Yet Space is not actually to be divided; or one part of it separated from another. Since it is the universal Locus of, and penetrates all Bodies.
1874. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 516. These Certificates were … entirely inadequate to determine the locus of the claims without parol testimony.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., V. xxxix. We all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual locus where there is a presence of other souls.
1889. Syd. Soc. Lex. Locus, the whole space in or on which a thing is situated; a place.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 395. It is even uncertain how far the writing-centre has a locus apart from the region in which impressions … are registered.
1901. Dundee Advertiser, 10 Jan., 4. In Dundee the fish trade is divided against itself on a miserable question of the locus of its market.
2. A subject, head, topic. [So in the Latin rhetorical writers, after Gr. τόπος.]
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v.
1894. Bruce, St. Paul’s Concept. Chr., vii. 155. This manner of handling the locus of justification is very open to criticism.
3. Math. The curve or other figure constituted by all the points that satisfy a particular equation of relation between coordinates, or generated by a point, line or surface moving in accordance with any mathematically defined conditions.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., A locus is a line, any point of which may equally solve an indeterminate problem. Ibid. All loci of the second degree are conic sections.
1758. Lyons, Fluxions, iv. § 99. The locus of a simple equation is always a right line.
1848. Salmon, Conic Sect., ii. § 15. A single equation between the coordinates denotes a geometrical locus.
1879. Clifford, Seeing & Thinking, iv. (1880), 141. When a point moves along a line, that line is the locus of the successive positions of the moving point.
1881. Nature, XXV. 131. The locus of the centre of this extraordinary barometric depression.
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 119. If two (non-concentric) pencils lying in the same plane are projective with one another (but not in perspective), the locus of the points of intersection of pairs of corresponding rays is a conic passing through the centres of the two pencils.
4. In Latin phrases: locus classicus, a standard passage (esp. one in an ancient author) that is viewed as the principal authority on a subject; locus communis, a COMMONPLACE; locus in quo, lit. ‘the place in which’ (something takes place), the locality of an event, etc.; in Law, used to designate the land on which trespass has been committed; locus pœnitentiæ (after Heb. xii. 17), a place of repentance; in Law, an opportunity allowed by law to a person to recede from some engagement, so long as some particular step has not been taken; locus standi, lit. ‘place of standing’; recognized position; in Law, a right to appear in court. Also genius loci (see GENIUS 7).
1864. H. Hayman, Ex. Gk. & Lat. Verse, Introd. p. xxii. If a special subject has a *locus classicus, as chariot-racing … in the Electra of Sophocles.
1883. Sat. Rev., 7 April, 446/1. The inclusion of honourable traffic … [was] grounded upon an utter misconception of the three loci classici in the Mosaic law.
1885. Law Times, LXXIX. 328/1. His action was successful, and the report of it is now a locus classicus in the law of life insurance.
1531. Elyot, Gov., I. xiv. Hauyng almoste all the places wherof they shal fetche their raisons, called of Oratours *loci communes, which I omitte to name.
1717. Salkeld, King’s Bench Rep., I. 94. The Plaintiff demurred, because here are two Places alledged and the Avowant has only answered to the *locus in quo, &c. which is but one of the two Places.
1842. De Morgan, in Graves, Life Sir W. R. Hamilton (1889), III. 248. Is there anything else which I ought to look at of yours on the same subject? if so, will you oblige me with a reference to the locus in quo.
1892. Atkins, Kelt or Gael, i. 10. [They] suggest that the Aryan was a native of some cold part of Western Europe—Southern Scandinavia seems the latest favourite locus in quo.
a. 1768. Erskine, Instit., III. ii. (1773), 427. The right competent to a party to resile from a bargain concerning land, before he has bound himself by writing is called in our law *locus pœnitentiæ.
1789. Term Rep., III. 149. An auction is not unaptly called locus penitentiæ.
1855. Newsp. Reader’s Pocket Comp., I. 68. ‘The doors of the institution are open to a limited number of adult male criminals, as a locus poenitentiae’: that is to say, as a place for repentance and reformation.
1885. Sir J. Pearson, in Law Rep., 29 Chanc. Div. 489. I see no locus pœnitentiæ given to him after he has once made his election.
1835. J. W. Croker, Ess. Fr. Rev., vi. (1857), 342. By this daring step Robespierre acquired a kind of *locus standi.
1886. Law Times, LXXXII. 94/2. An expectant occupier has a locus standi to apply for the renewal of a public-house licence.
