Definition
To accrue means to come into legal existence, to vest, or to become enforceable. The word carries two related but distinct legal senses that context determines:
1. To grow to or attach itself to something else. A subordinate or accessory claim attaches to a principal one — interest accrues to a debt, costs accrue to a judgment. In this sense, accrual is additive: the accruing item does not stand alone but accumulates as an adjunct to something already existing.
2. To arise or come into legal force as an independent right. A cause of action accrues when the plaintiff first has the legal right to bring it. A benefit accrues when the entitlement vests. In this sense, accrual marks the moment of origin or legal birth of the right itself.
The distinction between accrued and accruing also matters in practice. Accrued means already due and payable. Accruing means in the process of becoming due — not yet payable but accumulating toward that point. An accrued dividend is owed now. An accruing pension is building toward a future obligation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To increase or rise; to arise or spring up as a result of growth; to accumulate; to be incurred by the passage of time.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To come to by way of increase; to arise or spring as a growth or result; to be added as increase, profit, or damage, especially as the produce of money lent.
The common meaning focuses on accumulation and growth — interest accruing on a savings account, benefits accruing over years of service. The legal meaning adds a sharper edge: it identifies the precise moment at which a right becomes enforceable or a liability becomes fixed. That moment has enormous practical consequences in litigation because statutes of limitations generally begin to run only when a cause of action accrues. The ordinary sense of "building up over time" can mislead a researcher into thinking accrual is gradual, when legally it is often a discrete triggering event.
Common Confusion
Accrued, accruing, and vested are sometimes used interchangeably in older texts and in non-legal writing, but they are not synonyms. Accrued means the right or obligation is already due. Accruing means it is in the process of arising but not yet due. Vested means the right has become fixed and cannot be taken away — a right may vest before it accrues (as with a pension entitlement that is vested but not yet payable) or the two events may coincide. Researchers working with benefits law, pensions, or veterans' claims must be especially attentive to which word a source uses, because the legal consequences differ at each stage.
Why It Matters in Research
The accrual of a cause of action is the single most important trigger in limitations law, and the historical sources reflect this centrality. Whenever a statute of limitations issue appears in a case or document you are researching, the threshold question is always when the cause of action accrued — not when the harm occurred, not when the plaintiff learned of it (absent a discovery rule), and not when the defendant acted. Historical materials do not always make this clear because the discovery rule, equitable tolling doctrines, and statutory modifications have substantially complicated the accrual analysis over time. Sources written before the twentieth century often state the accrual rule in its simple classical form; modern doctrine in most jurisdictions has layered exceptions on top of it that the historical dictionaries do not anticipate.
The accrued/accruing distinction matters most in transactional and benefits contexts. In contract drafting, in judgment enforcement, and in benefits administration, the difference between an obligation that is accrued (already owed) and one that is accruing (building toward being owed) affects priority, discharge in bankruptcy, and the enforceability of assignments. Researchers in military and veterans' law should note that accrued benefits claims — where a veteran died before receiving a benefit already due — are governed by specific statutory substitution rules that turn on whether the benefit had accrued at death. The corpus entry on survivors' benefits addresses this directly.
Jurisdictional variation in accrual doctrine is significant for limitations research. Discovery rules, continuing tort doctrines, and statutory accrual provisions mean that when a cause of action accrues can differ substantially across jurisdictions and across types of claims. Be cautious about applying general statements from historical sources to modern limitations analysis without checking current doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five historical dictionaries agree on the core dual meaning — accrual as attachment to a principal thing, and accrual as the arising of an independent right — and all five treat the limitations context as central. Bouvier and Anderson both explicitly note that the statute of limitations does not run until the cause of action has accrued, establishing this as settled doctrine well before the modern period.
Burrill adds the useful Latin root accrescere and connects the term to the concept of something passing to or being added to a person, which illuminates the additive sense. Burrill also notes its use in Scots law, suggesting the term's reach across common law and mixed jurisdictions.
Anderson is uniquely valuable for the accrued/accruing distinction, providing the clearest period statement that accrued means due and payable while accruing means becoming but not yet due. No other dictionary in the set makes this distinction as cleanly. Researchers relying solely on Black's or Bouvier's may miss the practical significance of this temporal difference.
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's treat accruing costs — costs that become due after judgment, such as costs of execution — as the paradigm example of accrue in its additive sense. This is a narrow but recurring use in historical litigation documents and court records.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is the full complexity of modern accrual doctrine. The discovery rule (under which a cause of action accrues when the plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the injury) is absent from these sources entirely. Researchers using these dictionaries to understand limitations periods in modern disputes should treat the historical entries as a baseline statement of the traditional rule only.
Jurisdictional Note
Accrual of a cause of action is governed by a combination of common law rules, statutory provisions, and court-developed doctrines that vary by jurisdiction and claim type. The discovery rule has been adopted broadly but not uniformly, and its scope differs across personal injury, fraud, latent defect, and professional malpractice contexts. Federal claims often have their own accrual rules established by statute or circuit court precedent.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Survivors' Benefits -- DIC, Accrued Benefits, and Substitution Claims (The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia)