Definition
To adeem is to revoke, take away, or satisfy a testamentary legacy before the testator's death. The act occurs in two distinct ways: (1) by revocation, where the testator withdraws the bequest entirely, or (2) by satisfaction, where the testator makes an inter vivos gift to the beneficiary that substitutes for, or is treated as an advance on, the promised legacy. The result in either case is that the legatee receives nothing, or receives less, under the will. The completed act is called ademption; adeem is the verb form.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "To revoke (a legacy, grant, etc.) or to satisfy it by some other gift."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To revoke, as a legacy, grant, etc., or to satisfy it by some other gift."
The common and legal meanings are essentially identical here, but the word itself is rare outside legal contexts. General readers encountering adeem in historical documents may mistake it for a typographical error or an archaic form of "deem." It is neither. The term has a precise legal function distinct from any sense of judgment or opinion.
Common Confusion
Adeem and revoke are not perfectly synonymous, though historical sources sometimes treat them as interchangeable. Revocation of a bequest typically requires an affirmative act by the testator directed at the will itself. Ademption, by contrast, can occur by operation of law — automatically, when the specific subject matter of a bequest no longer exists in the estate at the testator's death — without any deliberate act of revoking. When a source says a legacy was adeemed, researchers should not assume the testator acted intentionally; the ademption may have been involuntary.
Why It Matters in Research
Adeem appears almost exclusively in older Anglo-American probate and equity materials. Researchers working with 18th- and 19th-century chancery records, treatises on legacies, or early American wills litigation will encounter the verb form; modern sources almost uniformly prefer the noun ademption and rarely conjugate the verb at all.
The critical research trap is conflating the two theories underlying ademption — revocation by act of the testator versus satisfaction/advancement — because the legal consequences and the evidentiary burdens differ. Historical sources, including the dictionary entries below, present both meanings under a single verb without distinguishing them, which can obscure which doctrine is actually at issue in a given case.
Jurisdictional variation in how courts handle ademption by extinction versus ademption by satisfaction is significant and has shifted considerably over the 20th century, particularly with the Uniform Probate Code's modifications to the identity theory. A historical case using adeem may have been decided under a strict identity-theory rule that modern law in the same jurisdiction has since abandoned. This affects the weight and applicability of older precedent.
Corpus connections: The term functions as a gateway word. Finding adeem in a source almost always signals that the surrounding material addresses the law of specific bequests, inter vivos gifts as satisfaction of legacies, or the doctrine of advancement. Researchers should follow those threads into treatises on the law of wills and equity jurisprudence rather than treating adeem as a standalone issue.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core meaning without meaningful divergence. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's agree that adeem means to take away or revoke a legacy, and all three sources immediately refer the reader to ademption rather than developing the verb independently. This pattern itself is instructive: the dictionaries treat adeem as functional vocabulary pointing toward a doctrine, not as a freestanding concept requiring extended treatment.
Burrill's is the most precise of the three, tracing the term to the Latin adimere (to take away) and citing Ward on Legacies — the most thorough early treatise on the subject — for the usage. Black's 2nd edition adds a case citation (Tolman v. Tolman, 85 Me. 317, 27 Atl. 184) not present in the 1st edition, providing at least one anchor in reported case law.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the bifurcation between ademption by extinction and ademption by satisfaction, a distinction that became increasingly important as American courts developed their own equity jurisprudence. Researchers relying solely on these dictionary entries will miss that conceptual structure entirely and should consult treatise literature directly.
Jurisdictional Note
American courts historically applied the English "identity theory" of ademption — if the specific property bequeathed no longer exists in the estate, the gift fails automatically, regardless of the testator's intent. Many states have modified or abandoned this rule, and the Uniform Probate Code adopts an intent-based approach. Whether adeem in a historical source reflects strict identity-theory reasoning or an intent-sensitive framework depends on the jurisdiction and period.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: ADEMPTION