Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Inn \Inn\, n. [AS. in, inn, house, chamber, inn, from AS. in in;
   akin to Icel. inni house. See {In}.]
   1. A place of shelter; hence, dwelling; habitation;
      residence; abode. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

            Therefore with me ye may take up your inn For this
            same night.                           --Spenser.

   2. A house for the lodging and entertainment of travelers or
      wayfarers; a tavern; a public house; a hotel.

   Note: As distinguished from a private boarding house, an inn
         is a house for the entertainment of all travelers of
         good conduct and means of payment,as guests for a brief
         period,not as lodgers or boarders by contract.

               The miserable fare and miserable lodgment of a
               provincial inn.                    --W. Irving.

   3. The town residence of a nobleman or distinguished person;
      as, Leicester Inn. [Eng.]

   4. One of the colleges (societies or buildings) in London,
      for students of the law barristers; as, the Inns of Court;
      the Inns of Chancery; Serjeants' Inns.

   {Inns of chancery} (Eng.), colleges in which young students
      formerly began their law studies, now occupied chiefly by
      attorneys, solicitors, etc.

   {Inns of court} (Eng.), the four societies of ``students and
      practicers of the law of England'' which in London
      exercise the exclusive right of admitting persons to
      practice at the bar; also, the buildings in which the law
      students and barristers have their chambers. They are the
      Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's
      Inn.

Chancery \Chan"cer*y\, n. [F. chancellerie, LL. cancellaria,
   from L. cancellarius. See {Chancellor}, and cf.
   {Chancellery}.]
   1. In England, formerly, the highest court of judicature next
      to the Parliament, exercising jurisdiction at law, but
      chiefly in equity; but under the jurisdiction act of 1873
      it became the chancery division of the High Court of
      Justice, and now exercises jurisdiction only in equity.

   2. In the Unites States, a court of equity; equity;
      proceeding in equity.

   Note: A court of chancery, so far as it is a court of equity,
         in the English and American sense, may be generally, if
         not precisely, described as one having jurisdiction in
         cases of rights, recognized and protected by the
         municipal jurisprudence, where a plain, adequate, and
         complete remedy can not be had in the courts of common
         law. In some of the American States, jurisdiction at
         law and in equity centers in the same tribunal. The
         courts of the United States also have jurisdiction both
         at law and in equity, and in all such cases they
         exercise their jurisdiction, as courts of law, or as
         courts of equity, as the subject of adjudication may
         require. In others of the American States, the courts
         that administer equity are distinct tribunals, having
         their appropriate judicial officers, and it is to the
         latter that the appellation courts of chancery is
         usually applied; but, in American law, the terms equity
         and court of equity are more frequently employed than
         the corresponding terms chancery and court of chancery.
         --Burrill.

   {Inns of chancery}. See under {Inn}.

   {To get (or to hold) In chancery} (Boxing), to get the head
      of an antagonist under one's arm, so that one can pommel
      it with the other fist at will; hence, to have wholly in
      One's power. The allusion is to the condition of a person
      involved in the chancery court, where he was helpless,
      while the lawyers lived upon his estate.