ACQUIRE

Definition

To acquire is to obtain ownership or possession of property through a lawful means — including purchase, gift, devise, descent, or adverse possession. In legal usage, the term is not confined to active effort; one may acquire property passively, as through inheritance, or by operation of law. Two specific contexts give the term particular legal weight: 1. In the law of contracts and commercial transactions, "acquire" describes the moment a party obtains a legally cognizable interest in property. Timing matters here — whether acquisition occurs before or after a triggering event (a loan, a judgment, a bankruptcy filing) determines the legal consequences that follow. 2. In the law of descent and distribution, "acquired" property historically referred to land that came to a person by means other than gift, devise, or descent from an ancestor — that is, property the person obtained through their own acts rather than through inheritance. This distinction shaped rules governing how such property passed on that person's death. ---

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To get; to gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own — as in acquiring a title, riches, knowledge, or habits. The common meaning emphasizes active effort and personal agency. The legal meaning is broader: acquisition requires only a lawful title, not personal exertion. A person who inherits an estate, receives a gift, or obtains property by court order has "acquired" it in the legal sense without lifting a finger. Researchers encountering the term in historical instruments should not assume active purchase or effort. ---

Common Confusion

ACQUIRE vs. HOLD: Anderson's Dictionary explicitly cross-references these terms. To acquire describes the moment of obtaining a legal interest; to hold describes the ongoing fact of possession or title. The distinction matters in statutory construction — a law prohibiting a corporation from "acquiring" additional land does not necessarily compel it to divest land already held. ACQUIRE vs. PURCHASE: In some older authorities, particularly in property and descent law, "purchase" was a term of art meaning acquisition by any means other than descent — encompassing gift and devise as well as sale. "Acquire" is the broader term. Conflating the two in historical sources can produce serious misreadings of conveyancing documents. ---

Why It Matters in Research

The most consequential research context for this term is the after-acquired property doctrine. In secured transactions law, an "after-acquired property clause" in a security agreement extends the creditor's lien to property the debtor acquires after the agreement is executed. The precise moment of acquisition — and what counts as acquisition — can determine whether a lender's security interest attaches. Researchers working with commercial law sources, UCC materials, or bankruptcy records should consult the encyclopedia entry on proceeds and after-acquired property for the doctrinal framework. A parallel issue arises in employment discrimination litigation. The after-acquired evidence doctrine concerns employer misconduct discovered after a wrongful termination — where evidence acquired post-firing may limit the employee's available remedies even if it did not cause the discharge. The term "acquire" in that context means the moment the employer learns of the disqualifying information, not when the underlying conduct occurred. In historical research, watch for the descent-law usage. Older statutes and treatises distinguished sharply between "acquired" and "ancestral" (or "inherited") property when determining intestate succession rules. An estate classified as "acquired" might pass differently — sometimes to collateral relations, sometimes escheat differently — than one classified as descending from an ancestor. This distinction is largely obsolete in American jurisdictions but appears frequently in 18th- and 19th-century instruments and commentaries. Timing traps: In transactional documents, bankruptcy filings, and judgment enforcement, the precise moment of acquisition can be dispositive. Historical sources often treat "acquire" as a unitary act, but modern doctrine may require determining whether acquisition occurred at contract execution, at closing, at recording, or at some other point. ---

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are consistent on the core meaning: to acquire is to gain property by some lawful title and make it one's own. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's each track the civil law root — the Latin acquirere, meaning to seek toward oneself, carrying the sense of making something one's own (suum facere). Burrill's is the most explicit in grounding the term in Roman law tradition. Anderson's contributes the most useful doctrinal content. His entry distinguishes the general meaning from the specialized descent-law meaning of "acquired" as a class of property, and flags "after-acquired" as its own operative term. This points researchers toward a doctrinal layer the other dictionaries leave implicit. What the historical dictionaries largely miss: the modern commercial law context. The after-acquired property clause in secured financing — now a standard feature of Article 9 security agreements — is not addressed in any of these sources. Researchers relying solely on the historical dictionaries will find solid grounding in property and descent law but will need modern treatises and UCC commentary for the transactional dimension. ---

Jurisdictional Note

The descent-law distinction between "acquired" and "ancestral" property has been substantially abolished in most American jurisdictions, though it survives in some state statutes governing intestate succession for particular asset classes. The after-acquired property doctrine in secured transactions is governed by UCC Article 9 as enacted in each state, with broad uniformity but occasional variation in how "acquisition" is defined for specific collateral types. ---

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Secured Transactions — Proceeds and After-Acquired Property (Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia) After-Acquired Evidence and Its Effect on Remedies (Law Mind Employment & Labor Law Encyclopedia) ---

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