In English law. A person who, being an alien born, has obtained, ex donatione regis, letters patent to make him an English subject, a high and incommunicable branch of the royal prerogative. A denizen is in a kind of middle state between an alien and a natural-born subject, and partakes of the status of both of these. 1 Bl. Comm. 374; 7 Coke, 6.
The term is used to signify a person who, being an alien by birth, has obtained letters patent making him an English subject. The king may denize, but not naturalize, a man; the latter requiring the consent of parliament, as under the naturalization act, 1870, (33 & 34 Vict c. 14.) A denizen holds a position midway between an alien and a natural-born or naturalized subject, being able to take lands by purchase or devise, (which an alien could not until 1870 do,) but not able to take lands by descent, (which a natural-born or naturalized subject may do.) Brown.
The word is also used in this sense in South Carolina. See McClenaghan v. McClenaghan, 1 Strob. Eq. (S. C.) 319, 47 Am. Dec. 532.
A denizen, in the primary, but obsolete, sense of the word, is a natural-born subject of a country. Co. Litt. 129a.