Definition
"Abo" as a legal term does not carry an independent substantive meaning in Anglo-American law. In Burrill's Law Dictionary, the entry functions as a truncated cross-reference abbreviation, directing readers to **abjurare** and the related doctrine of **abjuration**—the formal oath by which a person renounced allegiance to a particular sovereign, prince, or state, or swore to depart from and never return to a particular county, city, borough, or town. The term as it appears in Burrill is not a standalone legal concept but an abbreviated heading pointing to those substantive entries.
Researchers encountering "Abo." in older legal manuscripts, digests, or indices should treat it as shorthand for abjurare or abjuration rather than as a discrete legal term.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Australian Aboriginal."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. The term did not appear in general English dictionaries of that period as an independent word.
Editorial note: The modern common use of "Abo" as a reference to Australian Aboriginal peoples is a charged and widely considered offensive term in contemporary usage. It has no connection to the legal abbreviation found in historical law dictionaries. A researcher who encounters "Abo." in a legal digest or index should not import any modern common-language meaning; the legal usage is purely a Latin abbreviation pointing to abjuration doctrine.
Common Confusion
The principal confusion risk is mistaking "Abo." as an abbreviation in historical legal texts for a substantive term rather than a navigational shorthand. Burrill uses it as a compressed cross-reference. Researchers who do not follow the cross-reference to **abjurare** or **abjuration of allegiance** will miss the actual doctrine. Do not conflate this abbreviation with the separate historical concept of **attainder**, which also involved consequences flowing from formal legal acts of renunciation or outlawry, or with **exile** and **banishment**, which share conceptual overlap but operate through distinct legal mechanisms.
Why It Matters in Research
This entry is primarily a navigational artifact. Its research value is as a pointer, not a destination. When working in Burrill or similarly structured historical dictionaries that predate alphabetical completeness norms, abbreviated headings like "Abo." are common and easy to overlook or misread. The substantive research lies in the cross-referenced entries:
- **Abjurare**: The act of swearing to leave a place and not return, a mechanism used in medieval English law as an alternative to criminal punishment.
- **Abjuration of allegiance**: Formal renunciation of loyalty to a sovereign, with legal consequences for citizenship, property rights, and status.
Researchers working in naturalization history, expatriation law, or medieval criminal procedure should follow the cross-reference rather than treating this entry as terminal. The abbreviation pattern in Burrill reflects nineteenth-century digest practice; modern legal databases do not replicate this structure, so the same material will appear under the full headwords in digitized sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides only a fragment under this heading—essentially a cross-reference note in two parts: (1) departure from a specific jurisdictional unit under oath, and (2) renunciation of allegiance to a sovereign. This is consistent with the dual historical use of abjuration in English law, where the term covered both the sanctuary-and-abjuration procedure of medieval criminal law (leaving the realm after taking sanctuary) and the later Reformation-era and post-Reformation practice of formal loyalty oaths and their renunciation. Burrill does not elaborate here because the substantive content is carried under the full headwords. No other Law Mind shelf source provides a distinct entry under "Abo."