Dictionary.net

Practice. A writ commanding the sheriff, or other proper officer, to "take the body of the defendant and to keep the same to answer, ad respondendum, the plaintiff in a plea," &c. The amount of bail demanded ought to, be indorsed on the writ.

A defendant arrested upon this writ must be committed to prison, unless he give a bail bond (q. v.) to the sheriff. In some states, (as, until lately, in Pennsylvania,) it is the practice, when the defendant is liable to this process, to indorse on the writ, No bail required in which case he need only give the sheriff, in writing, an authority to the prothonotary to enter his appearance to the action, to be discharged from the arrest. If the writ has been served, and the defendant have not given bail, but remains in custody, it is returned C. C., cepi corpus; if he have given bail, it is returned C. C. B. B., cepi corpus, bail bond; if the defendant's appearance have been accepted, the return is, " C. C. and defendant's appearance accepted." According to the course of the practice at common law, the writ bears teste, in the name of the chief justice, or presiding judge of the court, on some day in term time, when the judge is supposed to be present, not being Sunday, and is made returnable on a regular return day. 1 Penna. Pr. 36; 1 Arch. Pr. 67.