non compos


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non compos (mentis)

Not sane or mentally competent. The phrase is Latin for "not of sound mind." Based on the orders he's been giving lately, many believe him to be non compos. The judge ruled that she had been non compos mentis at the time, and thus could not be held legally liable.
See also: compo, non

non compos

(ˈnɑn ˈkɑmpos)
1. mod. out of one’s mind; non compos mentis. She is strictly non compos!
2. and non compos poopoo mod. alcohol intoxicated. That gal isn’t just drunk. She’s non compos poopoo.
See also: compo, non

non compos

Crazy; mentally incapacitated and therefore unable to be responsible for one’s speech or actions. This term is an abbreviation of the Latin non compos mentis, literally translated as “not master of one’s mind,” or “not of sound mind.” It dates from the seventeenth century and today is loosely used for irrational behavior, as well as surviving in legal terminology.
See also: compo, non
References in periodicals archive ?
In the tradition of the Leiden school of fine painting, Bruijn's expert brush meticulously fills a detailed and multifaceted canvas of the rich and variegated lives of eighteenth-century Company schippers, from capable "humane heads of ships" to brutal and drunken commanders non compos mentis, both on land and at sea (264-274).
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Point by point and term by term, he patiently tests whether general statements of principle found in tracts such as Henry Swinburne's A Brief Treatise of Teastaments and Last Wills (1590) and John Brydall's Non Compos Mentis (1700) were applied and honored in practice.
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