ABIDE

Definition

In legal usage, "abide" carries two distinct but related meanings depending on context: 1. To perform, execute, or conform to. When a party is directed to "abide the order of the court," the term means active compliance — carrying out what the order requires. This is its most common modern legal sense. 2. To await without withdrawing. In the context of arbitration agreements, to "abide by" an award historically meant only to remain bound to the submission — to wait for the arbitrators' determination without revoking the reference — and not necessarily to waive the right to challenge the award once rendered. This narrower usage appears frequently in older arbitration bonds and is the source of significant interpretive dispute in historical sources. A third usage appears in procedural contexts: costs or other matters may be said to "abide the event of the suit," meaning they remain contingent, suspended in effect until the outcome is determined.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To endure without yielding; to withstand; to bear patiently; to remain or stay; to have one's abode; to accept and act in accordance with (abide by). Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To wait; to pause; to delay (obs.); to stay or continue in a place; to have one's abode; to remain stable or fixed in some state or condition; to continue. The common meaning of "abide by" — to accept and act in accordance with a decision — is broader and more final than its historical legal meaning in arbitration instruments. In ordinary speech, agreeing to abide by an outcome implies full acceptance of the result. In older legal instruments, particularly arbitration bonds, courts construed the phrase more narrowly: it obligated a party to await the award without revoking the proceeding, but did not foreclose legal challenge to the award afterward. Researchers treating the phrase as synonymous with unconditional acceptance will misread the legal record.

Common Confusion

The phrase "abide by the award" in arbitration contexts is frequently misread as an unqualified promise to accept and not contest the arbitrators' decision. The historical legal sources are consistent in rejecting this reading. "Abide by" in an arbitration bond meant the party would not pull out of the process mid-stream — it said nothing about the right to seek judicial review or challenge the award after it issued. Modern arbitration agreements that intend finality use different and more explicit language. Researchers encountering "abide by the award" in historical documents should not assume it reflects a waiver of post-award remedies.

Why It Matters in Research

The interpretive split between "abide" as compliance and "abide" as mere awaiting is a live trap for researchers working with pre-twentieth-century arbitration records, court orders, and procedural instruments. The same three-word phrase — "abide by the award" — could generate opposite litigation outcomes depending on which reading a court adopted. When researching arbitration history in the Law Mind corpus, note that the narrower awaiting interpretation was the dominant view in New Hampshire and Massachusetts courts as reflected in the cases cited across all four source dictionaries. Later developments in arbitration law moved toward stronger presumptions of finality, making the older corpus usage increasingly unreliable as a guide to modern doctrine. The "abide the event" usage in cost provisions is also a research signal: when costs are said to abide the event, the matter is unresolved and contingent on an outcome still to come. This phrasing appears in interlocutory orders, procedural stays, and consolidated proceedings. Researchers mapping case timelines should treat this phrase as marking an open procedural branch, not a concluded one. The term's overlap with ordinary English makes it easy to overlook as a term of art. Corpus searches for "abide" will surface an enormous volume of general language; narrowing to "abide the order," "abide the event," or "abide by the award" as set phrases will isolate the legally operative usages.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four source dictionaries agree on the core distinction. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Anderson's converge on two points: "abide the order of the court" means perform or execute; "abide by the award" in an arbitration bond means await without revoking, not necessarily acquiesce. Anderson's offers the most complete formulation, explicitly noting that the phrase means "to stand by the determination of the arbitrators, and take the consequences of the award; to await the award without revoking the submission; not, necessarily, to acquiesce in, or not to dispute the award." Bouvier's adds the inverse: it "can never be construed to mean that the defendant should not be at liberty to" challenge — the truncation in the source is consistent with the principle stated in the other dictionaries. Black's first edition cites 6 N.H. 162 for the arbitration proposition, while the second edition provides a fuller citation chain for the compliance meaning, anchoring it in Kansas appellate decisions. The New Hampshire and Massachusetts citations appearing across multiple entries suggest these were regarded as leading authorities on the arbitration interpretation in the period when these dictionaries were compiled. None of the historical dictionaries address the "abide the event" cost provision usage at length, though Anderson's mentions it in the entry's opening line as a standalone, self-contained definition. Researchers should treat that usage as undertheorized in the historical record and look to procedural treatises and court rules for fuller treatment.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Arbitration (Historical Doctrine); Court Orders and Compliance; Costs in Civil Proceedings.

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