Brief n.
 1. A short concise writing or letter; a statement in few words.
 Bear this sealed brief,
 With winged hastle, to the lord marshal.   --Shak.
 And she told me
 In a sweet, verbal brief.   --Shak.
 2. An epitome.
    Each woman is a brief of womankind.   --Overbury.
 3. Law An abridgment or concise statement of a client's case, made out for the instruction of counsel in a trial at law. This word is applied also to a statement of the heads or points of a law argument.
    It was not without some reference to it that I perused many a brief.   --Sir J. Stephen.
 Note: ☞ In England, the brief is prepared by the attorney; in the United States, counsel generally make up their own briefs.
 4. Law A writ; a breve. See Breve, n., 2.
 5. Scots Law A writ issuing from the chancery, directed to any judge ordinary, commanding and authorizing that judge to call a jury to inquire into the case, and upon their verdict to pronounce sentence.
 6. A letter patent, from proper authority, authorizing a collection or charitable contribution of money in churches, for any public or private purpose. [Eng.]
 Apostolical brief, a letter of the pope written on fine parchment in modern characters, subscribed by the secretary of briefs, dated “a die Nativitatis,” i. e., “from the day of the Nativity,” and sealed with the ring of the fisherman. It differs from a bull, in its parchment, written character, date, and seal. See Bull.
 Brief of title, an abstract or abridgment of all the deeds and other papers constituting the chain of title to any real estate.
 In brief, in a few words; in short; briefly. “Open the matter in brief.”  --Shak.
 Ab·stract n.
 1. That which comprises or concentrates in itself the essential qualities of a larger thing or of several things. Specifically: A summary or an epitome, as of a treatise or book, or of a statement; a brief.
    An abstract of every treatise he had read.   --Watts.
 Man, the abstract
 Of all perfection, which the workmanship
 Of Heaven hath modeled.   --Ford.
 2. A state of separation from other things; as, to consider a subject in the abstract, or apart from other associated things.
 3. An abstract term.
    The concretes =\“father” and “son” have, or might have, the abstracts “paternity” and “filiety.”\=   --J. S. Mill.
 4. Med. A powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance mixed with lactose in such proportion that one part of the abstract represents two parts of the original substance.
 Abstract of title Law, a document which provides a summary of the history of ownership of a parcel of real estate, including the conveyances and mortgages; also called brief of title.
 Syn: -- Abridgment; compendium; epitome; synopsis. See Abridgment.
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