:For other uses of charter, see Charter (disambiguation). A charter is a document bestowing certain rights on a town, city, university, land or institution; sometimes used as a loan of money. The term derives from the Latin word "Carta" word meaning "paper". Origin As John Fiske described in his 1890 treatise on the Origin of Civil Government in the United States: » The word "charter" originally meant simply a paper or written document, and it was often applied to deeds for the transfer of real… (More on Chartered)