ACCRESCERE

Definition

A Latin term from the civil and old English law meaning "to grow to." It describes the process by which property, soil, or a legal interest passes to and becomes united with something else — most commonly through the gradual and imperceptible accumulation of soil onto land by natural forces (alluvion). The term is the verbal root from which accretio (accretion) derives, and it captures the dynamic process of incremental addition rather than a discrete transfer. In property law, accrescere underlies the doctrine that land formed by the slow deposit of sediment belongs to the riparian owner whose land it adjoins, because the new soil has, in legal contemplation, "grown to" the existing parcel.

Common Confusion

Accrescere is closely associated with, but distinct from, two related concepts researchers sometimes conflate: — Accretion (accretio): The noun form describing the completed result — the accumulated soil or addition itself. Accrescere is the process; accretion is the outcome. — Jus accrescendi (right of survivorship): A separate doctrine applying to joint tenancy and co-ownership, by which a deceased co-owner's share "grows to" the surviving co-owners. The shared root verb creates genuine confusion in historical sources, where accrescere may appear in either a property-formation or a survivorship context. Researchers must determine from context which doctrine is invoked.

Why It Matters in Research

Accrescere appears in the corpus almost exclusively in historical and civil law materials, not in modern case law or statutory text. Researchers encountering the term should treat it as a signal that the surrounding text is drawing on Roman law foundations, likely through Justinian's Digest (particularly Digest 41.1), which is the primary source both Black's and Burrill's cite. The principal research trap is the shared root with jus accrescendi. A historical treatise or pleading using accrescere without the jus qualifier is almost certainly discussing riparian accretion, not survivorship — but the distinction requires context, because early English equity writers occasionally used the term loosely across both doctrines. Jurisdictional variation in how common law systems received Roman accretion doctrine means that accrescere as a term of art rarely survived into domestic statutory language. When it appears in 19th-century American or English cases, it is typically quoted from a civilian authority or used to invoke the Roman rule as persuasive background for a riparian boundary dispute. Its appearance in a document is therefore a useful marker pointing toward a water-boundary or alluvion question, even when the term itself is not the operative legal standard. Anderson's Dictionary of Law offers no useful entry for accrescere on its own terms — the Anderson source material provided here concerns "account," suggesting either a misfiled cross-reference or an indexing artifact in the corpus. Researchers relying on Anderson for this term should treat that source as unhelpful and look instead to Burrill and Black's.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's and Burrill's agree substantially, both citing Digest 41.1.30 as the foundational authority and defining the term as the process of soil growing to land by alluvion. Burrill's adds a second Digest citation (41.1.56) and explicitly bridges the term to its noun form accretio, making Burrill the more complete source for researchers tracing the civil law lineage. Neither Black's nor Burrill's addresses the survivorship usage under jus accrescendi within this entry — both treat accrescere solely in the riparian/alluvion context. Researchers seeking the survivorship doctrine will need to pursue jus accrescendi as a separate headword. What the historical dictionaries do not supply: any treatment of how common law courts adapted or resisted the civilian rule, or any discussion of how accrescere functioned in old English property conveyancing practice, though Burrill's parenthetical notation of the Law French form "accresser" hints at a Norman transmission route worth pursuing in French-language Year Book materials.

Jurisdictional Note

As a Latin civil law term, accrescere has no modern statutory home in common law jurisdictions. American riparian accretion doctrine is now governed by state property law and does not use the Roman terminology. The term's practical significance is confined to historical research, comparative law contexts, and cases where courts reason from civilian foundations to resolve gaps in common law riparian rules.

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