Definition
A terme (Law French: "for a term") is a phrase used in early English legal writing to indicate that an estate, right, or interest is held or enjoyed for a defined period. It appears most commonly in two constructions:
1. A terme de sa vie — for the term of his (or her) life. Denotes a life estate or life interest, meaning the holder's right endures only as long as that person lives.
2. A terme que passe est — for a term which is passed, i.e., for an expired term. Used to describe a tenancy or interest whose defined period has already run out.
The phrase functions as a temporal qualifier rather than a standalone substantive concept. Its significance lies in fixing the duration of an interest in property or a legal relationship.
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Common Confusion
A terme de sa vie (for the term of one's life) should not be confused with a terme d'ans (for a term of years). A life estate is measured by a human life and cannot be reduced to a fixed calendar period; a term of years is measured by clock and calendar and is not affected by the tenant's death or survival. Historical sources sometimes use a terme without the qualifying phrase, requiring the reader to determine from context whether a life term or a years term is meant.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to the Law French vocabulary of medieval and early modern English common law. Researchers will encounter it in the Year Books — the case citations in Burrill point specifically to Year Books of Edward II's reign — and in treatises drawing on that era. It does not appear in modern statutory or judicial language in this form.
Two traps are worth flagging. First, the phrase appears without full qualification in some Year Book passages; a terme alone could refer to a term of years or a life term depending on the surrounding text. Always read the qualifying noun (sa vie, d'ans, que passe est) before drawing conclusions about the nature of the interest. Second, the phrase a terme que passe est has a procedural dimension: courts used it to describe situations where a former tenant's term had expired and a question arose about possession or rights surviving the expiry. Confusing an expired-term scenario with a subsisting-term scenario can fundamentally misread the legal posture of a Year Book case.
For corpus researchers working with Law Mind materials, a terme is most likely to surface when tracing the historical roots of estate duration concepts — particularly life estates and leasehold terms — rather than in any modern employment or commercial context. The encyclopedia link to employment contracts is relevant only in the most attenuated sense (that contract terms have conceptual ancestry in this vocabulary); the term itself has no live employment law application.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the single source here and treats a terme concisely, supplying three Year Book citations to illustrate both the life-term and expired-term constructions. Burrill does not editorialize on the distinction between the two, presenting them as variant usages of the same phrase rather than as formally different doctrinal categories. That presentation is accurate as far as it goes, but it undersells the practical difference: a terme de sa vie was the technical basis for the life estate, one of the foundational freehold estates in English land law, while a terme que passe est was more procedural, marking the moment at which a possessory right could shift.
No other historical dictionary source was provided for this entry. Older civilian and canon law dictionaries use terme in related but not identical senses (particularly in ecclesiastical tenure contexts), and researchers working across legal traditions should be alert to those variations.
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Jurisdictional Note
A terme as a legal phrase has no current jurisdictional force in any common law jurisdiction. It survives only as historical vocabulary. The underlying concepts — life estates and expired leaseholds — remain live doctrinal categories in U.S., English, and Commonwealth property law, but those concepts are expressed in modern English rather than Law French.
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