Definition
A qualifying phrase appearing primarily in tax statutes and occasionally in other legislative instruments, directing that compliance or application shall be accomplished in a manner as close as practicable to the prescribed standard, allowing for minor deviations where strict literal compliance is impossible or impractical. The phrase functions as a legislative safety valve: it acknowledges that exact conformity to a statutory requirement may not always be achievable in execution, and instructs the actor — whether a tax official, assessor, or other functionary — to approximate the required standard as faithfully as circumstances permit.
In its primary context within Massachusetts tax legislation, the phrase appeared as an operative instruction to assessors and administrators, signaling that procedural requirements were to be treated as directory rather than strictly mandatory. Failure to comply to the letter would not necessarily void an act, provided the actor came as close to the requirement as was reasonably practicable.
Common Confusion
The phrase is easily misread as a mere courtesy expression softening a directive. It is not. In statutory usage, it carries legal consequence: courts treated it as establishing a standard of substantial compliance rather than strict compliance, and the presence or absence of this phrase in a statute could determine whether a procedural defect was fatal to a tax assessment or other official act. Do not conflate it with "as nearly as possible," which may impose a stricter obligation, or with general doctrines of substantial compliance that apply independent of the statutory text.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in nineteenth-century American statutory materials — particularly Massachusetts tax acts — should recognize it as a term of art signaling a substantial compliance standard. The phrase appears in contexts where assessors, collectors, or other local officials were given administrative flexibility, and courts interpreting these statutes used the phrase to distinguish directory from mandatory requirements.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is deliberately fragmentary, listing the phrase alongside a cluster of other interpretive phrases from wills, deeds, pleadings, and official instruments. This is typical of the dictionary's method: terse citation without extended analysis. Researchers must pursue the cited Massachusetts authority — 9 Gray (Mass.) 39 — directly to understand how the phrase was judicially applied.
Because this phrase is tied to the language of specific statutes rather than to a freestanding legal doctrine, its meaning is inseparable from the enacting jurisdiction's statutory text and the court decisions construing it. Transplanting a definition from one jurisdiction's tax act to another without verifying parallel language is a research error.
The phrase belongs to a recognizable family of statutory qualification clauses common in the mid-nineteenth century that courts used to moderate harsh results from literal application of procedural requirements. Understanding this family — including phrases like "as nearly as may be" and "as nearly as practicable" — is essential for interpreting the authorities.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole historical dictionary source available for this phrase, and its treatment is minimal: the phrase is listed, a single Massachusetts citation is given (9 Gray 39), and the entry moves on. No definition is offered, no analysis is supplied. This is characteristic of the dictionary's treatment of statutory phrases, where citation substitutes for exposition.
What the entry does confirm is that the phrase had achieved sufficient legal currency by the time of the dictionary's compilation to warrant inclusion as a recognizable term from tax act interpretation. Its placement alongside similarly terse entries for phrases from wills ("as now in the occupation of"), deeds ("as of fee"), and pleadings ("as of his own proper") suggests the editors viewed it as one of several fixed interpretive phrases requiring judicial gloss rather than dictionary definition.
Historical dictionaries generally do not address this phrase. It falls into a category of statutory language that sits below the threshold of doctrinal treatment — significant enough in practice to generate litigation, but not significant enough to attract extended treatise or encyclopedia coverage in the classical period.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase appears specifically in Massachusetts tax act materials, and its interpretation is governed by Massachusetts case law from the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers working in other jurisdictions should not assume identical treatment without verifying whether the same or analogous language appears in the relevant statute and has been similarly construed.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Statutory Construction (directory vs. mandatory provisions); Tax Law (assessment procedures and substantial compliance).