1. To indorse; to sign the back of an instrument.
2. To sign so as to show acceptance or approval.
3. To sign so as to indicate financial responsibility for.
4. Hist. (Of a magistrate) to sign a warrant issued in one county to permit its execution in the signing magistrate’s county.
“[Although] the warrant of the judge of the Court of King’s Bench extends over the whole realm, … that of a justice of the peace cannot be executed out of his county, unless it be backed, that is, indorsed by a justice of the county, in which it is to be carried into execution. It is said, that formerly there ought in strictness to have been a fresh warrant in every fresh county, but the practice of backing warrants has long been observed, and was at last sanctioned by the statute 23 Geo.
2. c. 26. s. 2, and 24 Geo.
2. c. 55.” 1 Joseph Chitty, A Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law 45 (2d ed. 1826).
