Definition
A Latin term from the civil law meaning to apply, to employ, to exercise, or to use. The term does not stand alone as a distinct legal concept but appears as a functional verb in standard civil law phrases. Two constructions recur across the sources:
1. Adhibere diligentiam — to use or apply care. This phrase appears in the law of obligations and contract, describing the standard of attention or effort a party was expected to bring to a transaction or duty.
2. Adhibere vim — to employ force. This phrase arises in contexts involving duress, coercion, or unlawful compulsion — particularly in the civil law treatment of contracts voidable on grounds of fear or violence.
Why It Matters in Research
Adhibere is an entry-level Latin verb that researchers will encounter embedded in civil law maxims and Digest quotations rather than as a freestanding legal doctrine. Its significance is almost entirely philological: knowing what the word means unlocks the meaning of the phrase in which it sits.
When reading historical treatises on Roman law, the common law's reception of civilian doctrines, or early American equity materials that draw on Justinian's Digest, adhibere diligentiam will appear in discussions of fault standards — negligence before negligence had a fully developed common law vocabulary. Adhibere vim will appear in treatments of duress and the vitiating effect of force on consent.
Researchers should be alert to the fact that neither phrase is a formal term of art with a fixed, bounded meaning in the way that, say, dolus or culpa are. They are descriptive phrases whose force depends on context. Do not over-index on adhibere as if it carries independent doctrinal weight; look instead at the surrounding phrase and its Digest source.
Burrill's citation to Dig. 18.6.11 (for adhibere diligentiam) and Dig. 4.2.12.2 and 4.2.14.3 (for adhibere vim) provides the anchor points for any researcher tracing these phrases to their Roman source. Digest 4.2 is the title Quod metus causa gestum erit, ratum non habebo — on transactions made under duress — which situates adhibere vim squarely within the civil law of compulsion and voidability.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree entirely on substance. Black's (both editions) and Burrill give the same definition and the same illustrative phrases. There is no meaningful divergence among them.
Burrill is the most useful of the three for researchers because he alone provides Digest citations, making it possible to verify the usage in context. Black's entries are essentially condensed from Burrill without the citation apparatus.
None of the dictionaries discuss adhibere in connection with specific common law reception, which reflects the term's nature: it is a building-block Latin word, not a transplanted doctrine. Researchers looking for how the underlying concepts — care, force, compulsion — were absorbed into common law and equity will need to move beyond the dictionary entries into treatise literature.