PECU'LIAR, adjective [Latin peculiaris, from peculium, one's own property, from pecus, cattle.]

1. Appropriate; belonging to a person and to him only. Almost every writer has a peculiar style. Most men have manners peculiar to themselves.

2. Singular; particular. The man has something peculiar in his deportment.

3. Particular; special.

My fate is Juno's most peculiar care.

[Most cannot, in strict propriety, be prefixed to peculiar but it is used to give emphasis to the word.]

4. Belonging to a nation, system or other thing, and not to others.

PECU'LIAR, noun Exclusive property; that which belongs to a person in exclusion of others.

1. In the canon law, a particular parish or church which has the probate of wills within itself, exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or bishop's court.

Court of peculiars, in England, is a branch of the court of arches. It has jurisdiction over all the parishes dispersed through the province of Canterbury, in the midst of other dioceses, which are exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction, and subject to the metropolitan only.