Marque n.  Law A license to pass the limits of a jurisdiction, or boundary of a country, for the purpose of making reprisals.
 Letters of marque, Letters of marque and reprisal, a license or extraordinary commission granted by a government to a private person to fit out a privateer or armed ship to cruise at sea and make prize of the enemy's ships and merchandise. The ship so commissioned is sometimes called a letter of marque.

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 Re·pris·al n.
 1. The act of taking from an enemy by way of reteliation or indemnity.
    Debatable ground, on which incursions and reprisals continued to take place.   --Macaulay.
 2. Anything taken from an enemy in retaliation.
 3. The act of retorting on an enemy by inflicting suffering or death on a prisoner taken from him, in retaliation for an act of inhumanity.
 4. Any act of retaliation.
 Letters of marque and reprisal. See under Marque.

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