Definition
"Approve of" is a phrase appearing in legal instruments, statutes, and testimony that signals assent, sanction, or favorable acknowledgment of an act, condition, or arrangement. In legal usage, to approve of something means to express agreement with or acceptance of it after the fact — but the phrase carries an important limitation: approval or assent, standing alone, does not establish the active mental state required for criminal liability or complicity. Courts have held that approving of a felonious act is legally distinct from willfully contributing to or procuring that act, and the phrase cannot substitute for the mens rea elements required to make a party guilty as a principal or accessory.
In non-criminal contexts, "approve of" appears frequently in transactional and procedural settings — a court approves of a settlement, a regulatory body approves of a plat, a party approves of terms — where the phrase simply signals formal or informal acceptance without the additional weight of authorship, procurement, or instigation.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To sanction, agree with, or think well of something or someone; to regard favorably.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To regard as good; to commend; to be pleased with; to think well of; also, to sanction officially.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow in civil and transactional contexts but significant in criminal law. In everyday speech, saying someone "approved of" an act implies little more than that they did not object or that they regarded it positively. In criminal law, that ordinary meaning is legally insufficient: courts treat mere approval as categorically different from the active contribution, procurement, or instigation necessary to establish guilt. A researcher reading a legal source that says a defendant "approved of" conduct should not assume the phrase implies criminal culpability.
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Common Confusion
"Approve of" is frequently conflated with "consent to" in both historical sources and legal argument. Bouvier expressly pairs the two phrases and treats them as sharing the same limitation — neither, singly or combined, establishes the willful contribution or procurement required for criminal liability. The confusion matters because "consent" has independent legal significance in contract, tort, and criminal defense contexts (particularly in assault and sexual offense law), while "approve of" does not carry equivalent doctrinal weight in those areas. A researcher encountering either phrase in historical sources should not assume interchangeability with terms like "aid," "abet," "procure," or "counsel," all of which carry distinct and heavier legal meanings.
See also: CONSENT TO.
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Why It Matters in Research
This phrase presents a trap for researchers working with historical criminal records, case reporters, and legislative materials. In nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources, witnesses and courts routinely used "approve of" in testimony and opinions without intending to establish complicity. If a researcher reads that a defendant "approved of" a criminal act and treats that as equivalent to aiding and abetting, they will misread both the legal standard and the historical record.
The Kentucky authority cited in Bouvier (90 Ky. 654) is the anchor for the proposition that approval language is insufficient for criminal guilt — but the principle was not universally articulated across jurisdictions in early sources, meaning researchers working with materials from other states may find courts that used the phrase more loosely or without the limiting gloss Bouvier provides.
In modern regulatory and transactional contexts — subdivision approvals, court approval of settlements, administrative approvals — the phrase functions procedurally rather than as a term of art, and its weight depends entirely on the procedural posture and the approving authority. Researchers working in property, real estate, or family law contexts should cross-reference the specific approval process at issue rather than relying on the phrase as a standalone legal signal.
The Law Mind Encyclopedia entries on subdivision regulation and marital settlement agreement approval are relevant for understanding how "approval" functions as a formal procedural step with defined legal consequences in those bodies of law — contexts where the phrase carries far more procedural weight than it does in criminal law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the sole historical dictionary source here, and its entry is brief but precise. Bouvier treats "approve of" and "consent to" together, and the thrust of the entry is a limiting proposition: the phrase does not express willful contribution to or procurement of a felonious act, which is what criminal guilt requires. This framing reflects a concern with loose language in criminal proceedings — the entry serves as a caution against inferring guilt from approval language alone.
Notably, Bouvier's entry does not address the phrase's role in civil, transactional, or regulatory contexts at all, which is a significant gap. Researchers should not assume the criminal-law limitation carries over into areas where approval is a defined procedural act with affirmative legal consequences. The historical dictionary record for this term is thin; its usefulness lies in the single, well-placed criminal-law caution rather than in comprehensive coverage.
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Jurisdictional Note
The criminal-law limitation on "approve of" was articulated by a Kentucky court in the late nineteenth century and adopted by Bouvier, but the principle reflects a broadly shared common-law concern about establishing mens rea through loose language. Regulatory approval processes — for plats, settlements, permits, and similar matters — vary substantially by jurisdiction and are governed by local statutes and rules rather than by any general definition of the phrase.
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