Definition
A preposition meaning intermingled with, in the midst of, or distributed across a group. In legal usage, "among" carries two distinct operative functions:
1. Commerce and regulatory contexts: "Among" indicates intermixture and penetration — not merely adjacency. Commerce "among the states" means commerce that passes into and through states interiorly, not merely commerce that touches state borders from the outside.
2. Distributive contexts (wills, trusts, and property): When a testator directs property to be distributed "among" several persons, the word carries a mandate of inclusion. No member of the identified group may be wholly excluded, and the property may not be concentrated entirely in one recipient. Every person within the group is entitled to some portion of the distribution.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In the midst of and surrounded by other people or things; associated with or belonging to a group of similar persons or things.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "In the midst of; mingled with; surrounded by; in company or association with."
The common and legal meanings are not sharply opposed, but the legal meaning is more demanding than ordinary usage suggests. In everyday speech, "among" is descriptive — it places something in relation to a group. In law, "among" is often operative: in commerce clause jurisprudence it defines the geographic and functional reach of federal regulatory power, and in testamentary law it imposes an affirmative distributive obligation. A researcher who reads "among" as merely spatial or associative will miss its legal freight.
Common Confusion
"Among" versus "between": In ordinary usage these are sometimes treated as interchangeable (with "between" reserved for two parties and "among" for three or more). Legal instruments sometimes use them loosely, but courts have distinguished them in specific contexts. Contribution "among" tortfeasors, rights "among" partners, and apportionment "among" beneficiaries all invoke the multi-party distributive sense. Using "between" in such a context can create interpretive ambiguity about whether the instrument contemplates a bilateral or multilateral relationship.
Why It Matters in Research
The term is deceptively simple and easy to skip past in index searches, but it carries significant interpretive weight in three recurring research contexts.
Commerce Clause research: The definition of "among the several states" in Article I is the pivot point for federal regulatory power over interstate commerce. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1 (1824), established that "among" means intermingled with — not merely touching. Every subsequent expansion or contraction of commerce clause doctrine turns in part on what "among" requires. Researchers working backward through pre-New Deal materials will find sharp disagreement about how far "intermingled with" reaches, and dictionary entries from this era reflect that contested terrain.
Testamentary and trust distribution: When researching will construction disputes or trust administration problems, "among" is a term of art that courts have read as mandating ratable sharing. If the instrument uses "among" but the fiduciary has distributed unequally or excluded a member of the class, the word itself becomes the grounds for surcharge or reformation. Historical probate materials frequently analyze "among" versus "to" and "between" as distinct markers of the testator's intent.
Partnership and multi-party rights: In business organization research, rights and duties "among" partners or "among" co-owners signal internal, intra-group obligations — distinct from obligations running to third parties. The encyclopedia entry on partnership rights among partners addresses how "among" delineates the internal governance sphere.
Corpus trap: Because "among" appears so frequently as ordinary connective tissue in legal documents, full-text searches will generate overwhelming noise. Researchers should pair "among" with the substantive term it governs (e.g., "distributed among," "commerce among," "contribution among") to locate doctrinally significant uses.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core definition — intermingled with — and all trace it to the same source: Chief Justice Marshall's language in Gibbons v. Ogden. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Anderson's reproduce substantially identical text, with Anderson adding the useful gloss that "among" in the commerce clause context "may properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one." This is an early formulation of what would later become the substantial effects and multi-state nexus inquiries.
Bouvier's restates the Gibbons formulation most economically; Black's first edition adds the testamentary distribution rule (property directed "among" several persons cannot be given entirely to one, nor can any member be excluded), which Bouvier's and Anderson's do not develop at comparable length. The second edition of Black's embeds the entry within an entry also containing unrelated Latin family-law terms (amita, amita major, amita maxima), a feature of early bound dictionary formats that can confuse researchers browsing scanned historical sources — the AMONG entry in that edition requires careful page navigation to isolate.
None of the historical dictionaries address the partnership or contribution-among-tortfeasors usage in any detail; those applications were either undeveloped or treated as self-evident extensions of the base meaning. Researchers working on those topics will find the historical dictionary entries a thin starting point and should move quickly to treatises and primary sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Interstate Compacts and Relations Among the States — Constitutional Law Encyclopedia
Contribution Among Tortfeasors — Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia
General Partnerships — Rights and Duties of Partners Among Themselves — Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia