noun
1. English law : a court held by a sheriff or an undersheriff with a jury and authorized to assess damages in undefended and in compulsory taking-of-land cases, to find the value of defendants' lands taken on executions, and formerly to try other issues of fact sent to it by courts of superior jurisdiction
2. Scots law : a court presided over by a sheriff depute or a sheriff substitute trained in law that is the ordinary and the small debt court and a criminal court and since 1913 has jurisdiction in practically all civil actions with the principal exceptions of actions involving the status of marriage, divorce, or legitimacy, reductions, winding-up of companies where paid-up capital exceeds £10,000, and actions to prove the text of lost documents but cannot sentence to more than two years' imprisonment