ADMINISTER

8 definitions found across Law Mind sources

ADMINISTERAuthored
The Law Mind • 1063 words
Definition
To administer is to perform, apply, or direct something in a formal or official capacity. The term carries distinct meanings depending on context, and legal usage draws on all of them: 1. To manage or oversee affairs, an office, or an institution — as in administering a government, a trust, or an organization. The emphasis is on ongoing supervision and execution of duties, not merely holding a title. 2. To settle and distribute an estate — specifically, to take charge of the property of a deceased person, pay debts, and distribute assets to beneficiaries according to law. This is the dominant meaning in probate and succession law. A personal representative who performs these acts is said to administer the estate. 3. To give, dispense, or apply — including giving an oath, dispensing a sacrament, issuing relief, or giving a drug or substance to a person. In criminal law, "to administer" a poison, drug, or noxious substance means to cause it to enter another person's system, whether by direct application, inducement to consume, or other means. Physical delivery by the accused's own hand is generally not required; procurement or causation suffices. 4. In civil law contexts, to manage the estate or property of a person under legal disability, such as a minor or an incapacitated individual.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To manage or supervise the conduct of something; to apportion or distribute; to give a drug to a patient; to settle an estate. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To manage or conduct public affairs; to direct the execution or application of something; to dispense or supply, as relief or a sacrament. The ordinary language meaning and the legal meaning are largely continuous, but the legal usage sharpens in two important respects. First, in probate law, "administer" is a term of art denoting a defined legal process with formal requirements — it is not simply "manage." Second, in criminal law, "administer" a substance carries a specific scope: courts and statutes have interpreted it to include indirect causation, not merely hand-to-mouth delivery. A researcher reading a criminal indictment or historical statute should not assume the ordinary meaning of the word controls.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Administration of an estate: The broader process, of which "administer" describes the active conduct. Administered by an administrator (intestate) or executor (testate). Administering an oath: A distinct legal act, often required of specific officers (judges, notaries, commissioners) and carrying its own formal requirements. False swearing after an administered oath may constitute perjury. Administering a substance: The criminal-law sense. Statutes typically extend liability to causing another person to take the substance, not just direct physical application. The precise scope varies by jurisdiction and era of enactment.
Why It Matters in Research
The multi-sense nature of "administer" is a genuine trap in historical legal sources. A statute using the word may be addressing estate management, oath-giving, drug delivery, or general governance — and the surrounding context may not always disambiguate clearly, particularly in older materials. In probate research, "administer" and "administration" are terms with significant procedural weight. Historical sources from English ecclesiastical courts, early American statutes, and equity courts each used the term within different procedural frameworks. The Statute of 31 Edward III (cited by Burrill) is an early anchor point for the statutory meaning in English law. Researchers working with American colonial or early republic sources should note that administration of estates was frequently overseen by ecclesiastical-style courts before probate jurisdiction was fully secularized. In criminal law, the administering-a-substance sense appears in poison, drug, and abortion-related statutes across different eras. The meaning of "administer" in a 19th-century criminal statute may be construed differently from the same word in a modern drug-offense provision. Historical dictionaries tend to define the term accurately, but they understate the causation problem — courts have repeatedly had to decide whether procurement, direction, or facilitation counts as "administering." Researchers working on historical criminal cases should look for how the administering jurisdiction's courts interpreted the word, not simply how dictionaries defined it. The oath-administration sense matters in jurisdictional competence questions: who was legally authorized to administer oaths is a recurring issue in challenges to depositions, affidavits, and notarized documents. This is particularly important in cross-border document authentication issues.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) presents the same core entry across its two senses: general management/official duties, and the criminal-law meaning of causing a substance to enter a person's system. Both editions include probate distribution. The formulation is stable between editions, which suggests the definition had settled by the late 19th century. Burrill's Law Dictionary leads with the estate-management sense and ties it explicitly to the statute of 31 Edward III, providing useful historical grounding for the English statutory origin. Burrill also notes the civil law application to management of a minor's estate — a thread that connects to guardianship and tutorship concepts that Black's does not foreground. Anderson's Dictionary of Law opens its treatment with the dispensing and furnishing sense — "to dispense, supply, furnish, give" — before moving to estate management. This ordering reflects a broader common-law understanding of the word and usefully captures the oath-giving dimension. All four sources agree on the core senses. What the historical dictionaries collectively underemphasize is the causation question in the criminal-law context: they describe administering a substance as causing a person to take it, but do not address how courts resolved cases where the defendant did not personally apply the substance. Researchers should treat the dictionary definition as a starting point, not a resolution of that question.
Jurisdictional Note
The estate-administration sense is universally recognized but procedurally variable. Common law jurisdictions distinguish intestate administration (administrator appointed by court) from testate administration (executor named in will), but the formalities, bonding requirements, and court supervision differ significantly across U.S. states and between common law and civil law systems. In Louisiana and Quebec, the civil law tradition of succession administration differs structurally from common law administration. The criminal-law administering-a-substance sense also varies: some jurisdictions require specific intent, others do not, and the statutory language itself differs enough that a definition drawn from one state's cases may not translate.
Related Terms
AdministratorAdministratrixAdministration of EstatesExecutorPersonal RepresentativeLetters of AdministrationIntestateOathAdminister an OathNoxious SubstanceCausation (Criminal Law)GuardianTrusteePublic Officer
ADMINISTERmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
To discharge the duties of an office; to take charge of business; to manage affairs; to serve in the conduct of affairs, in the application of things to their uses; to settle and distribute the estate of a decedent. In physiology, and in criminal law, to ad- minister means to cause or procure a person to take some drug or other substance into his or her system; to direct and cause a med- icine, poison, or drug to be taken into the system. 8 Ohio St. 131; 34 N. Y. 223; 11 Fla. 247; 1 Moody, 114. Neither fraud nor deception is a necessary ingre- dient in the act of administering poison. To force poison into the stomach of another; to compel an- other by threats of violence to swallow poison; to furnish poison to another for the purpose and with aries, or those in charge of the management of the executive department.
ADMINISTERmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
[from Lat. administrare, q. v.] To manage; to take charge and dispose of the personal property of an intestate, or a testator having no executor, according to law.* Used in this sense in the statute 31 Edw. III. stat. 2, c. 11. Cowell. 2 Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, 387. Applied in the civil law to the management of the estate of a minor. See Administrare. Held to import alteration, change or conversion of the property in goods. 4 Florida R. 66, 67, 84. 5 Randolph's R. 51. In modern practice. To perform the
ADMINISTERmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
To make a matter res judicata there must be concurrence of four conditions: identity - in the thing sued for, of the cause of action, of the parties to the action, and of the quality in the persons.1 Transit in rem judicatam. It passes into a thing adjudicated; it becomes a judgment. Applies to a contract upon which a judgment has been obtained.2 1. To dispense, supply, furnish, give: as, to administer poison, or a stupefying mixture. Not simply to prescribe or give a drug, but to direct and cause it to be taken.º That offense is not to be confined to the manual administering of poison. So construed, the law would be substantially without effect, and would not reach the large class of offenders at whom it is aimed. "Administer" has a far more extended meaning - to furnish or cause to be furnished and taken, to give or cause to be taken, by any mode. 10 Etymologically, applicable to anything that can be done by the hand to or for another. Neither fraud 1 Atchison, &c. R. Co. v. Commissioners, 12 Kan. 135 (1873). See 11 Pet. 100; 2 Sumn. 436; 15 F. R. 300; 28 Minn. 179, 180; 76 Mo. 38; 85 N. C. 456; 42 N. J. L. 117; 18 Johns. 463; 19 S. C. 156. 3 L. ad-justus, according to right. See 3 Kent, 240, 335; 2 Phillips, Ins. §§ 1814-15. * Richardson v. Woodbury, 43 Me. 214 (1857). 3 Bl. Com. 183, 238; 3 Kent, 418. L. adminiculum, a prop. • See 1 Greenl. Ev. § 606. • [Robbins v. State, 8 Ohio St. 165 (1857). 10 [La Beau v. People, 34 Ν. Υ. 232-33 (1866). nor deception is a necessary ingredient in the act of administering poison. To force poison into the stomach of another; to compel another by threats of violence to swallow poison; to furnish poison to another for the purpose and with the intention that the person shall commit suicide therewith, and which poison is accordingly taken for that purpose; or to be present at the taking of poison by a suicide, participating in the taking by assistance, persuasion, or otherwise, although the party intends and agrees himself also to commit suicide, - each is a mode of "administering" poison. The word does not then always imply service. See ATTEMPT; NOXIOUS. of the goods which cannot be administered under the limited power already granted.1 Administration cum testamento annexo. With the will attached - to the letters. The Latin words are abbreviated c. t. a. Obtains either when no executor is named or when he who is named will not or cannot serve. The incumbent follows the statute of distributions, unless otherwise directed by the will. The administrator, in such case, succeeds to all the ordinary powers of the executor. When the will expressly constitutes the executor a trustee for some 2. To dispense, direct the application of: special purpose, or vests in him a discretionary power as, to administer the law, justice.2 Administrable. Capable of being administered or rendered effective: as, an administrable decree or law. 3. To propound the form of; to give, tender: as, to administer an oath. 4. To manage, to settle: as, to administer the estate of an intestate or of a testator who has no executor. Administered. Applied to legal ends or uses; opposed to unadministered: as, the administered or unadministered effects of a decedent.3 Administrator. A man appointed by a competent court to settle the affairs of a decedent's estate. Administratrix. A woman charged with that duty. The former word is generally used, in statutes and decisions, to designate the officer. Administration. The service rendered, or the charge or duty assumed, in the settlement of a decedent's estate.4 While administrator designates a representative named by the court, in opposition to an executor, who is designated by will, administration may mean the management of an estate by either an executor or an administrator. See REPRESENTATIVE, (1). Maladministration; misadministration. In law-books, in which they are often interchanged, these words mean wrong administration.5 Waste and embezzlement are examples. Administration ad colligendum. For collecting - and preserving perishable goods.6 Administration cæterorum. Of the rest - 1 Blackburn v. State, 23 Ohio St. 162-64 (1872); 11 Fla. 256; 4 Car. & P. 368. 2 See 3 Bl. Com. 72. in reference to some matter outside of the ordinary powers and duties of an executor, or charges him with some duty indicating a special confidence reposed in him, such duty or power does not pass to an ordinary administrator.2 Administration de bonis non. Concerning goods not - already disposed of. The Latin words are abbreviated d. b. n. Occurs where another administrator has died, or been discharged, leaving a part of the estate unsettled. Administration de bonis non, cum testamento annexo. Upon goods not administered, and with the will annexed to the letters. The Latin words are abbreviated d. b. n., c. t. a. Occurs where an executor has died, or been discharged, leaving a part of the estate yet to be settled. An administrator de bonis non cannot sue the former administrator or his representative for a devastavit or for delinquencies in office, because the latter is liable directly to creditors and the next of kin. The former has to do only with the goods of the intestate unadministered. If any such remain in the hands of the discharged administrator or his representative, in specie, he may sue for them either directly or on the bond. Regularly, a decree against the administrator for an amount due, and an order for leave to prosecute his bond, are prerequisites to the maintenance of a suit thereon.3 But otherwise, under statutes. The preceding administration must have become vacant by resignation, removal, or death. Administration durante absentia. During absence - when the absence of the proponent of a will or of the executor delays or imperils settlement of the estate.5 Administration durante minori ætate. During minority - while the executor named is under lawful age; at common law seventeen. 1 See 1 Will. Exec. 585. 2 Pratt v. Stewart, 49 Conn. 339 (1881). Powers as to realty, 24 Am. Law Reg. 689-706 (1885), cases. 3 Beall v. New Mexico, 16 Wall. 540-42 (1872), cases; See United States v. Walker, 109 U. S. 263-64 (1883). United States v. Walker, 109 U. S. 260-61 (1883), cases. 4 See 2 Bl. Com. 490; 92 N. Y. 74; 18 S. C. 351. Minkler v. State, 14 Neb. 183 (1883); Martin v. Ellerbe, 70 Ala. 339 (1881); 37 id. 399; 108 U. S. 199, 206. 2 Bl. Com. 505. Sims v. Waters, 65 Ala. 443 (1880). See also Conklin v. Egerton, 21 Wend.
ADMINISTERv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To manage or conduct, as public affairs; to direct or superintend the execution, application, or conduct of; as, to administer the government or the state. For forms of government let fools contest: Whate'er is best administered is best. Pope. To dispense; to serve out; to supply; execute; as, to administer relief, to administer the sacrament. [Let zephyrs] administer their tepid, genial airs. Philips. Justice was administered with an exactness and purity not before known. Macaulay. To apply, as medicine or a remedy; to give, as a dose or something beneficial or suitable. Extended to a blow, a reproof, etc. A noxious drug had been administered to him. Macaulay. To tender, as an oath. Swear . . . to keep the oath that we administer. Shak. To settle, as the estate of one who dies without a will, or whose will fails of an executor.
ADMINISTERv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To contribute; to bring aid or supplies; to conduce; to minister. A fountain . . . administers to the pleasure as well as the plenty of the place. Spectator. To perform the office of administrator; to act officially; as, A administers upon the estate of B.
ADMINISTERn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
Administrator. [Obs.] Bacon.
administerverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
To apportion out, distribute. | To manage or supervise the conduct, performance or execution of; to govern or regulate the parameters for the conduct, performance or execution of; to work in an administrative capacity. | To minister (to). | To settle, as the estate of one who dies without a will, or whose will fails of an executor. | To give, as an oath. | To give (a drug, to a patient), be it orally or by any other means. | To cause (a patient, human or animal) to ingest (a drug), either by openly offering or through deceit.

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