Definition
ALS is a Latin abbreviation used in historical legal practice with two distinct contractions:
1. Abbreviation for "alias" — meaning "otherwise" or "also known as," indicating an alternative name or identity. Used in pleadings and process to identify a party known by more than one name.
2. Abbreviation for "alios" — the accusative plural of "alius," meaning "others." Used in practice documents to refer collectively to additional unnamed parties.
The two uses are closely linked: both derive from forms of the Latin "alius" (other/another) and both appear in abbreviated pleading and process notation, often in contexts such as writs, indictments, and court records where space or convention demanded compressed Latin forms.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Initialism of "Alternative Learning System."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Also" (obsolete); "As" (obsolete). Chaucer.
The common English senses — whether archaic ("also," "as") or modern ("Alternative Learning System") — have no connection to the legal abbreviation. Researchers encountering ALS in historical court records, writs, or pleadings should not interpret it through any English-language lens. The abbreviation signals Latin contractions of alias or alios and belongs entirely to the grammar of Latin legal practice.
Common Confusion
ALS as "alias" and ALS as "alios" look identical on the page but function differently. When ALS appears before or attached to a name, it likely contracts "alias." When it appears after a named party in a list or writ — suggesting additional parties — it contracts "alios" (others). Context within the document is the only reliable guide. Neither use should be confused with the modern English initialism or with the adverb "also," which appears in a separate and distinct legal context: Burrill notes that "also," spelled out in full at the start of a clause in a will, functions like "item" to keep clauses distinct, but between parts of the same clause may operate conjunctively. That interpretive question is unrelated to the ALS abbreviation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical English legal records — particularly pre-nineteenth-century pleadings, writs, indictments, and chancery documents — will encounter ALS as a space-saving Latin contraction. Misreading it as an English word or a modern acronym produces nonsensical results.
The alias use matters most in identity tracking across documents: a party named in one record as "John Smith ALS Jones" is being identified as also known by a second name. Failure to recognize this can cause researchers to treat one person as two distinct individuals across a corpus.
The alios use matters in party identification: ALS after a named defendant or plaintiff signals that additional parties existed but are not individually named at that point in the document. Researchers reconstructing litigation history or party relationships must account for this abbreviation as a placeholder for unnamed participants.
Historical corpus materials — particularly those in abbreviated or contracted Latin — require familiarity with standard law Latin abbreviations. ALS is among the more compact and easily overlooked. Anderson's entry simply redirects to ALIUS and Alios, which is the correct path: a researcher who finds ALS in context should consult those parent entries to understand the full grammatical and procedural significance.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill provides the substantive content here. His entry identifies both contractions (alias and alios), cites 1 Inst. Cl. 8 for practice authority, and then — unusually for an abbreviation entry — pivots to address "ALSO" as a separate but nearby term, explaining its interpretive role in will construction. The pivot is editorially awkward but reflects Burrill's organizational habit of treating proximate terms together. The "also" discussion (citing Lord Ellenborough and Trevor C.J.) is substantively independent and should not be conflated with the ALS abbreviation itself.
Anderson adds nothing beyond a redirect to ALIUS and Alios, confirming that the abbreviation's meaning is anchored in those Latin parent terms.
Neither source addresses modern uses of ALS as an acronym, nor would they be expected to. The historical dictionaries are consistent with each other and with general practice in abbreviated Latin legal notation of the period.