civil law. A name given generally, to all species of frauds committed in making contracts. 2. This word is said to be derived from the Latin stellio, a kind of lizard remarkable for its cunning and the change of its color, because those guilty of frauds used every art and cunning to conceal them. But more particularly it was the crime of a person who fraudulently assigned, sold, or engaged the thing which he had before assigned sold, or engaged to another, unknown to the person with whom be was dealing.