What is "deposition"

Deposition \Dep`o*si"tion\, n. [L. depositio, fr. deponere: cf. F. d['e]position. See Deposit.]

1. The act of depositing or deposing; the act of laying down or thrown down; precipitation.

   The deposition of rough sand and rolled pebbles.
   --H. Miller.

2. The act of bringing before the mind; presentation.

   The influence of princes upon the dispositions of their courts needs not the deposition of their examples, since it hath the authority of a known principle.
   --W. Montagu.

3. The act of setting aside a sovereign or a public officer; deprivation of authority and dignity; displacement; removal.

   Note: A deposition differs from an abdication, an abdication being voluntary, and a deposition compulsory.

4. That which is deposited; matter laid or thrown down; sediment; alluvial matter; as, banks are sometimes depositions of alluvial matter.

5. An opinion, example, or statement, laid down or asserted; a declaration.

6. (Law) The act of laying down one's testimony in writing; also, testimony laid or taken down in writing, under oath or affirmation, before some competent officer, and in reply to interrogatories and cross-interrogatories.

   Syn: Deposition, Affidavit.

   Usage: Affidavit is the wider term. It denotes any authorized ex parte written statement of a person, sworn to or affirmed before some competent magistrate. It is made without cross-examination, and requires no notice to an opposing party. It is generally signed by the party making it, and may be drawn up by himself or any other person. A deposition is the written testimony of a witness, taken down in due form of law, and sworn to or affirmed by the deponent. It must be taken before some authorized magistrate, and upon a prescribed or reasonable notice to the opposing party, that may attend and cross-examine. It is generally written down from the mouth of the witness by the magistrate, or some person for him, and in his presence.

late 14c., "dethronement, putting down from dignity or authority," from Old French deposicion (12c.), from Latin depositionem (nominative depositio), noun of action from past participle stem of deponere (see deposit (v.)).\n

\nMeaning "statements made in court under oath" is from early 15c. Meaning "action of depositing" is from 1590s. Properly, deposition belongs to deposit, but deposit and depose have become totally confused and English deposition partakes of senses belonging to both.

n. 1 The removal of someone from office. 2 The act of depositing material, especially by a natural process; the resultant deposit. 3 (context chemistry English) The production of a thin film of material onto an existing surface. 4 (context legal English) The process of taking sworn testimony out of court; the testimony so taken. 5 (context meteorology English) The formation of snow or frost directly from water vapor. 6 (context physics English) The transformation of a gas into a solid without an intermediate liquid phase (reverse of sublimation) 7 (context religion English) The formal placement of relics in a church or shrine, and the feast day commemorating it.

1. n. the natural process of laying down a deposit of something [syn: deposit]

2. (law) a pretrial interrogation of a witness; usually done in a lawyer's office

3. the act of putting something somewhere [syn: deposit]

4. the act of deposing someone; removing a powerful person from a position or office [syn: dethronement]

Deposition may refer to:

• Deposition (law), taking testimony outside of court
• Deposition (politics), the removal of a person of authority from political power
• Deposition (university), a widespread initiation ritual for new students practiced from the Middle Ages until the 18th century

In chemistry, deposition occurs when molecules settle out of a solution.

Deposition can be viewed as a reverse process to dissolution or particle re-entrainment.

Deposition by political means concerns the removal of a politician or monarch. It may be done by coup, impeachment, invasion, or forced abdication. The term may also refer to the official removal of a clergyman, especially a bishop, from ecclesiastical office.

In the law of the United States, a deposition is the out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that is reduced to writing for later use in court or for discovery purposes. It is commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada, where it is called examination for discovery, and is almost always conducted outside of court by the lawyers themselves (that is, the judge is not present to supervise the examination). In other countries, testimony is usually preserved for future use by way of live testimony in the courtroom, or by way of written affidavit.

A minority of U.S. states, such as New York, refer to the deposition as an "examination before trial" (EBT). Deposition is the preferred term in U.S. federal courts and in the majority of U.S. states, such as California, because depositions are sometimes taken during trial in a number of unusual situations. For example, in certain states such as California and New York, the litigation process may be drastically accelerated if the plaintiff is dying from a terminal illness.

Depositions are a part of the discovery process in which litigants gather information in preparation for trial. Some jurisdictions recognise an affidavit as a form of deposition, sometimes called a "deposition upon written questions." This developed in Canada and the United States in the nineteenth century. While in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Australia, and New Zealand recording the oral evidence of supporting witnesses ('obtaining a statement') is routine during pre-litigation investigations, having the right to pose oral questions to the opposing party's witnesses before trial is not.

Deposition is the geological process in which sediments, soil and rocks are added to a landform or land mass. Wind, ice, and water, as well as sediment flowing via gravity, transport previously eroded sediment, which, at the loss of enough kinetic energy in the fluid, is deposited, building up layers of sediment.

Deposition occurs when the forces responsible for sediment transportation are no longer sufficient to overcome the forces of gravity and friction, creating a resistance to motion, this is known as the null-point hypothesis. Deposition can also refer to the buildup of sediment from organically derived matter or chemical processes. For example, chalk is made up partly of the microscopic calcium carbonate skeletons of marine plankton, the deposition of which has induced chemical processes ( diagenesis) to deposit further calcium carbonate. Similarly, the formation of coal begins with deposition of organic material, mainly from plants, in anaerobic conditions.

In aerosol physics, deposition is the process by which aerosol particles collect or deposit themselves on solid surfaces, decreasing the concentration of the particles in the air. It can be divided into two sub-processes: dry and wet deposition. The rate of deposition, or the deposition velocity, is slowest for particles of an intermediate size. Mechanisms for deposition are most effective for either very small or very large particles. Very large particles will settle out quickly through sedimentation (settling) or impaction processes, while Brownian diffusion has the greatest influence on small particles. This is because very small particles coagulate in few hours until they achieve a diameter of 0.3 micrometres. At this size they no longer coagulate. This has a great influence in the amount of PM-2.5 present in the air.

Deposition velocity is defined from , where is flux density, is deposition velocity and is concentration. In gravitational deposition, this velocity is the settling velocity due to the gravity-induced drag.

Often studied is whether or not a certain particle will impact with a certain obstacle. This can be predicted with the Stokes number , where is stopping distance (which depends on particle size, velocity and drag forces), and is characteristic size (often the diameter of the obstacle). If the value of Stk is less than 1, the particle will not collide with that obstacle. However, if the value of Stk is greater than 1, it will.

Deposition due to Brownian motion obeys both Fick's first and second laws. The resulting deposition flux is defined as , where is deposition flux, is the initial number density, is the diffusion constant and is time. This can be integrated to determine the concentration at each moment of time.

The deposition (from Latin depositio cornuum, "taking off the horns") was a semi-official initiation ritual which was common at universities throughout Europe from the Middle Ages until the 18th century. The ritual was introduced at German universities in the late 15th century, probably from the influential University of Paris. Models may have included the Freisprechung ritual in artisan guilds, where apprentices were admitted to the status of journeymen.

The Deposition is a 1634 painting by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The artist had already treated the same subject on at least two other occasions, in 1615 and 1619.

The Deposition is a 1615 painting by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. He later reworked it in his 1619 version of the subject.

The Deposition is a 1619 painting by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck. It dates to around 1619 and reworks his 1615 version of the same subject It was presented to the Ashmolean Museum in 1869 by Charles T Maude and still resides there.

Deposition is a thermodynamic process, a phase transition in which gas transforms into solid. The reverse of deposition is sublimation.

One example of deposition is the process by which, in sub-freezing air, water vapor changes directly to ice without first becoming a liquid. This is how snow forms in clouds, as well as how frost and hoar frost form on the ground or other surfaces. Another example is when frost forms on a leaf. For deposition to occur, thermal energy must be removed from a gas. When the leaf becomes cold enough, water vapor in the air surrounding the leaf loses enough thermal energy to change into a solid. Even though the air temperature may be below the dew point, the water vapor may not be able to condense spontaneously if there is no way to remove the latent heat. When the leaf is introduced, the supercooled water vapor immediately begins to condense, but by this point is already past the freezing point. This causes the water vapor to change directly into a solid.

Another example is the soot that is deposited on the walls of chimneys. Soot molecules rise from the fire in a hot and gaseous state. When they come into contact with the walls they cool, and change to the solid state, without formation of the liquid state. The process is made use of industrially in combustion chemical vapor deposition.

Another example of physical deposition is the artificial process of physical vapor deposition, used to deposit thin films of various materials onto various surfaces.

Deposition releases energy and is an exothermic phase change.

The Deposition or Lamentation over the Dead Christ is a 1618-20 painting by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which it entered in 1720.