Dividend

A cash payment financed by profits that is designated by a company's board of directors to be distributed among stockholders.

A portion of the principal, or profits, divided among several owners of a thing.

The term is usually applied to the division of the profits arising out of bank or other stocks; or to the division among the creditors, of the elects of an insolvent estate.

In another sense, according to some old authorities, it signifies one part of an indenture.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.