Utter

to exhibit or display a document to someone else; (a check)any attempt to cash a check or otherwise place it in circulation, and in so doing to state or imply, directly or indirectly, that the check and the endorsement is genuine

To offer, to publish.

To utter and publish a counterfeit note is to assert and declare, directly or indirectly, by words or actions, that the note offered is good. It is not necessary that it should be passed in order to complete the offence of uttering. It seems that reading out a document, although the party refuses to show it, is a sufficient uttering. The merely showing a false instrument with intent to gain a credit when there was no intention or attempt made to pass it, it seems would not amount to an uttering.
   

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