Definition
To approve means to sanction, confirm, or accept as sufficient for a legal or official purpose. The term operates in several distinct legal contexts:
1. Official sanction or confirmation. An authorized person or body approves an instrument, act, or agreement when they formally accept it as legally valid or effective — for example, a court approving a settlement, a judge approving a bond, or a legislature approving an executive act.
2. Approval of a sale or note. In commercial contexts, a seller or creditor approves a promissory note or other security when they accept it as adequate consideration or sufficient credit support for a transaction.
3. (Historical) To enclose and cultivate common or waste land. In old English property law, a lord of the manor was said to "approve" common land when he enclosed a portion of it for private cultivation, provided sufficient common remained for those entitled to use it. This sense derives from medieval statutes and is now obsolete as an active legal concept.
4. (Historical) To accuse or inform against a co-criminal. In early criminal procedure, an approver was an accomplice who confessed guilt and then accused others of the same offense. To "approve" in this sense meant to turn informer and substantiate the accusation by proof.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To express a favorable opinion of something; to sanction or agree to something officially.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To sanction officially; also (now obsolete) to make proof of or demonstrate.
The gap between ordinary and legal usage is narrow for the modern senses but significant for the historical ones. In everyday speech, approval is primarily about expressing agreement or favorable opinion. In law, approval carries operative force — it is the act that gives validity or effect to an instrument, transaction, or official act. A court "approving" a settlement does not merely endorse it; approval makes the settlement binding and enforceable. The historical senses — enclosing common land and accusing a fellow criminal — bear no resemblance to modern common usage at all.
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Common Confusion
Approve vs. Ratify. These terms are related but not interchangeable. Approval typically precedes or accompanies an act, confirming its sufficiency in advance or at the time of execution. Ratification operates retroactively, confirming a prior unauthorized or voidable act. A court approves a proposed settlement; it ratifies an agent's unauthorized contract. Anderson's Dictionary notes explicitly that approval of a promissory note can itself constitute ratification of the underlying sale — showing the terms can converge, which is precisely where confusion arises.
Approve vs. Approbate. Historical sources, particularly Burrill and Anderson, distinguish approbate as a more formal term of art meaning to give official approval to an instrument (as a judge approbating a bond). Modern usage largely collapses this distinction, but the separate term appears in historical instruments and court records.
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Why It Matters in Research
**Obsolete land law sense is a trap.** Researchers working with English land records, medieval statutes, or treatises on common and waste land will encounter "approve" meaning to enclose land — not to sanction anything. Blackstone (2 Bl. Comm. 34) and the Statutes of Merton (1235) and Westminster II (1285) are the governing sources for this usage. Misreading "the lord approved the waste" as "the lord sanctioned the waste" fundamentally distorts the legal transaction being described.
**The criminal approver sense appears in early criminal law sources.** Pre-modern English criminal reports and Staunford's Pleas of the Crown reference approvers in felony cases. This usage vanished from active legal practice but will appear without gloss in historical materials.
**Court approval as operative legal act.** Modern researchers in family law, bankruptcy, and administrative law will encounter "approval" as the decisive legal event — the act that gives a document or agreement legal effect. In these contexts, the date and conditions of approval matter for enforceability, finality, and appeal periods. Whether a court has merely acknowledged a filing or actually approved it is a meaningful distinction in contested litigation.
**Approval on condition.** Commercial and regulatory sources frequently distinguish unconditional approval from conditional approval, where the instrument becomes effective only upon satisfaction of stated conditions. Researchers should not assume approval language is absolute without examining the full instrument or order.
**Jurisdictional and procedural variation.** Subdivision plat approval, settlement approval in class actions, and court approval of infant or incompetent settlements each have distinct procedural regimes. "Approved" stamped on a plat by a municipal authority is a different legal event from a federal judge's approval of a class action settlement.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on the core modern sense — official sanction or acceptance — but give substantial attention to meanings that modern dictionaries have dropped entirely.
Burrill provides the most thorough treatment of the old English land law sense, tracing the term through its Latin and Law French roots (appropriare, appruare, approver) and connecting it to enclosure of common land as a means of improving rents and profits. He distinguishes sub-senses: taking land to one's own use, enclosing for cultivation, and making profit of it by increasing rent. This granularity is useful for parsing historical conveyancing records.
Bouvier adds the criminal law sense — approving as a form of accusation by an accomplice — and notes that the term derives from the accuser's obligation to prove the accusation, citing Staunford. He also lists "to vouch" and "to appropriate" as related historical meanings, showing the word's considerable range.
Black's (both editions) and Black's Second are consistent on the land law meaning, citing Blackstone and the medieval statutes. They give less attention to the criminal sense and none to the commercial approval sense, which Anderson covers directly.
Anderson is the most practically oriented, addressing approved notes in commercial sales transactions and noting the connection between approval and ratification. This source is the most useful for researchers working in commercial or transactional history.
What the historical dictionaries largely omit: the modern administrative and judicial approval function — court approval of settlements, regulatory approval of applications, legislative approval of executive acts. These uses must be sourced from practice materials, rules of procedure, and modern treatises rather than from the dictionary shelf.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia: Marital Settlement Agreements — Negotiation and Court Approval (family_21)
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia: Subdivision Regulation — Approval Process, Dedications, and Exactions (property_103)
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Subdivision — Platting Requirements, Subdivision Regulations, and Approval Process (realestate_65)
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