mittimus means A warrant issued for someone to be taken into custody. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 91 out of 100.
Why this word is great
MITTIMUS — [Noun] A judicial warrant authorizing imprisonment or the transfer of a prisoner or court records. From Latin mittimus ("we send"), the opening word of such a document, from the verb mittere ("to send"). Unlike a "subpoena" (which commands presence to testify) or a "habeas corpus" (which questions the legality of confinement), a mittimus is the administrative engine of consequence: the cold fact of dispatch. It is the dry rustle of the signed parchment passing from bench to bailiff, the definitive clang of a cell door bolted shut, and the impersonal handoff of a dossier to a silent archive—the moment an individual is converted, by due process, into the single, imperious verb: we send.
noun
- A warrant issued for someone to be taken into custody.“Away George, away, raise the watch at Ludgate, and bring a Mittimus from the Iustice for this desperate villaine.”
- A writ for moving records from one court to another.“Next, sometimes the same clerk, but often a second clerk, who may not have been in the courtroom, types up the mittimus, the formal court order that directs corrections offers^([sic]) to commit someone to prison, and something could get lost in translation there.”
- A formal dismissal from a situation.