CAVEAT
[Latin, Let him beware.] A warning; admonition.
A formal notice or warning given by an interested
party to a court, judge, or ministerial officer in
opposition to certain acts within his or her power
and jurisdiction.
Originally, a caveat was a document that
could be served on either a judge or a public
official to give him or her notice that he or she
should discontinue a certain proceeding until an
opposing party was given an opportunity to be
heard.
Used in the past by someone objecting to the
appointment of an executor or administrator of
an estate or to the granting of a patent for an
invention, the term caveat is rarely used by modern
attorneys.
