ASSIGNS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ASSIGNSAuthored

The Law Mind • 1076 words

Definition

Assigns (also assignees) are persons to whom property, rights, or interests have been, or may in the future be, transferred by another. The term operates in two registers that are easily confused: (1) as a noun identifying specific individuals who have already received a transfer, and (2) as a forward-looking term of art in conveyancing instruments that extends the reach of a grant to all future transferees of the grantee's interest.

In modern usage, the word survives almost entirely in boilerplate deed and contract language — most familiarly in the phrase "heirs, administrators, executors, and assigns" — where it functions to ensure that whatever interest is being granted passes not only to the named grantee but also to anyone who later takes that interest by assignment. Without the word "assigns" in older common law instruments, there was real risk that a conveyance would be read as personal to the grantee alone. Modern drafting conventions and most recording statutes have largely eliminated that technical hazard, but the phrase persists as a matter of tradition and as a belt-and-suspenders precaution.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "assign" — persons assigned to a task or duty.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as a standalone legal term; the ordinary sense tracks the general meaning of persons assigned to perform a function.

The gap between common and legal meaning is significant. In ordinary English, "assigns" suggests people delegated to do something — an active, task-oriented sense. In law, assigns are recipients of transferred property or rights, not delegates to a duty. A researcher encountering "assigns" in a deed or contract should read it as a term of conveyancing art designating future transferees, not as a description of agents or appointees.

Common Confusion

ASSIGNS vs. ASSIGNEES: These words are functionally synonymous and historically interchangeable. Burrill notes they are "nearly or quite synonymous" and likely reflect different pronunciations of the French assignes. "Assignees" is now the dominant form in most legal contexts (particularly bankruptcy, where an assignee for the benefit of creditors is a defined role), while "assigns" survives almost exclusively in the fixed conveyancing phrase. A researcher should not treat the two as legally distinct; context and period of the source document govern which form appears.

ASSIGNS vs. HEIRS: In the phrase "heirs and assigns," the two words do different work. "Heirs" extends the grant through inheritance; "assigns" extends it through voluntary transfer. Together they were historically required to create a fee simple absolute in a common law conveyance of land. Omitting either word could limit the estate granted. This is a frequent trap in reading older deeds.

Why It Matters in Research

The primary research significance of "assigns" is its role as a technical term of art in historical conveyancing. In pre-twentieth-century deeds, wills, and leases in the Law Mind corpus, the presence or absence of "assigns" in a granting clause can determine the nature of the estate conveyed. Researchers reading colonial-era or nineteenth-century deeds should check whether the granting clause includes "assigns" alongside "heirs" — its omission may signal a life estate rather than a fee simple, and courts of the period took the distinction seriously.

In contract research, "assigns" appears in assignment and anti-assignment clauses: "This agreement is binding upon and inures to the benefit of the parties and their respective heirs, executors, administrators, successors, and assigns." Whether a contract's benefits or burdens run to assigns is a distinct question, and the Law Mind corpus reflects ongoing doctrinal tension — particularly in landlord-tenant and commercial contract materials — over when assignment is permissible without consent.

Jurisdictional variation in how strictly courts enforced the "heirs and assigns" formula in conveyancing creates traps when reading older state-court decisions. Some American jurisdictions relaxed the common law requirement early; others adhered to it well into the nineteenth century. Cross-reference the jurisdiction of any deed or case before inferring the estate conveyed solely from presence or absence of the word.

The Rapalje & Lawrence source material, while fragmentary in the corpus entry, situates "assigns" within the broader assignment-law context (bonds, notes, choses in action), reminding researchers that the term appears not only in real property conveyancing but also in the transfer of personal property and contract rights — contexts that generate their own distinct bodies of case law.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on both meaning and current status. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Burrill's converge on the same core definition: assigns are those to whom property has been transferred, and the word is now confined to the conveyancing formula "heirs, administrators, and assigns." Burrill adds the most useful historical and linguistic texture, tracing the word to the Law French assignes and noting that the written form "assignees" was once used interchangeably.

What the historical dictionaries largely omit is the forward-looking dimension of the term — that "assigns" in a deed clause refers not only to past transferees but to all future ones. This prospective function is the word's practical reason for existence in boilerplate language, and it is underemphasized in the dictionary definitions, which stress identification of persons rather than the operative effect of including the word in a grant.

The historical sources also do not address the contract-law context (anti-assignment clauses, successor-and-assigns provisions), which is where the term most frequently appears in contemporary legal drafting. Researchers using these sources alone will get an accurate but incomplete picture.

Jurisdictional Note

American jurisdictions diverged from English common law at different rates on whether the word "assigns" (alongside "heirs") was technically required to pass a fee simple. Several states abolished the requirement by statute in the nineteenth century; others gave it effect by judicial construction without the magic words. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century deeds should verify the controlling jurisdiction's rule before drawing conclusions about the estate conveyed from the presence or absence of the term.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Assignment of Rights — Anti-Assignment Clauses (Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)
Landlord-Tenant — Assignment and Subletting (Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)

ASSIGNSmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Assignees; those to whom property shall have been transferred. Now seldom used except in the phrase, in deeds, "heirs, administrators, and assigns." 8 R. I. 36.

ASSIGNSmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

Assignees; those to whom property shall have been transferred. Now Beldom used except in the phrase, in deeds, "heirs, administrators, and assigns; " 8 R. I. 36. ASSISĄ (Lat. assidere). A kind of jury or inquest. Assisa vertitur in juratum. The assize has been turned into a jury. A writ: as, an assize of novel disseisin, assize of common pasture: An ordinance: as, assisa panis. Spel- man, Gloss.; Littleton § 234; 8 Sharsw. Bla. Com. 402. A fixed specific time, sum, or quantity. A tribute; tax fixed by law; a fine. Spel- man, Gloss. Assisa armorum. A statute ordering the keeping arms. Assisa cadere. To be nonsuited. Cowel; 8 Bla. Com. 402. Assisa continuanda. A writ for the con- tinuation of the assize to allow the produc- tion of papers. Reg. Orig. 217. Assisa de foresta. Assize of the forest. which see. Assisa mortis d'ancestoris. Assize of mort d'ancestor, which see. Assisa panis et cerevisia. Assize of bread and ale; a statute regulating the weight and measure of these articles. Assisa proroganda. A writ to stay pro- ceedings where one of the parties is engaged in a suit of the king. Reg. Orig. 208. Assisa ultimæ præsentationis. Assize of darrein presentment, q. v. Assisa venalium. Statutes regulating the sale of certain articles. Spelman, Gloss.

ASSIGNSmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

(89) 426; 3 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 158; 4 Id. 109; 1 when it conveys all the debtor's property Wheel. Am. C. L. 415. ASSIGNMENT, (of a bond). Penn. (N. J.) 20, 24, 30, 1032; 2 Wash. (Va.) 219. 465. (of a bond or note). 2 Rand. (Va.) (of book debt). 3 Day (Conn.) 364; 2 Wheel. Am. C. L. 470. (of certificates of stock). 10 Mass. (of chose in action). 5 Wheat. (U.S.) 277; 9 Id. 913; 8 Johns. (N. Y.) 152. (of a contract). 12 Mass. 281. (of a corporeal chattel, by appropriation). 5 Binn. (Pa.) 398. Mass. 206. 842. (of a debt). 4 Taunt. 326. (of a debt, by bill of exchange). 12 (of a debt, by letter). 3 Barn. & C. (of a debt, by parol). 2 Rose 271. (of dower). 1 Pick. (Mass.) 189, 314; 10 Wend. (N. Y.) 415, 533; 5 Bos. & P 1. (of insurance policy). 9 Wend. 163, 404; 17 Id. 631 (of interest in insurance policy). 6 Wheel. Am. C. L. 205. (of interest in mortgage). 4 Wheel. Am. C. L. 293. - (of a judgment). 15 Mass. 481. (of a lease). 7 Johns. (N. Y.) 211; 6 Wheel. Am. C. L. 404. 408. (of lease, by parol). 15 Wend. (N. Y.) (of a mortgage). 2 Day (Conn.) 474; 2 Gill & J. (Md.) 36; 15 Mass. 236; 4 Rawle (Pa.) 255. Greenl.) 334. (of a mortgage, by deed). 2 Me. (2 (of a mortgage, by parol). 7 Wheel. Am. C. L. 80. 410. 425. (of mortgages and accounts). 9 Ves. - (of mortgagor's bond). 2 Day (Conn.) (of mortgage, without the bond). Sax. (N. J.) 135. (of one of several bonds, without the mortgage). 17 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 400; 3 Wheel. Am. C. L. 181; 7 Id. 78. (of open account, effect of, in Maryland). 1 Wheel. Am. C. L. 172. Wheel. Am. C. L. 278. (of an order). 4 Me. (4 Greenl.) 384. (of a patent). 4 Mas. (U. S.) 15; 7 (of a promissory note). 6 Me. (6) Greenl.) 212, 219; 10 Mass. 316; 13 Id. 304. (of sealed instrument). 2 Wheel. Am. C. L. 422; 3 Id. 177, 179. (of a ship and cargo). 1 Atk. 160. ASSIGNMENT, ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL, (of a ship, freight and earnings). 5 Mau. & Sel. 228. and does not prefer any creditor or class of creditors above the others; and, (2) with preferences, when certain creditors are directed to be first paid before making any division of the assets among the others. In some States assignments with preferences are not allowed, and the whole subject is so fully regulated by local statutes which differ essentially one from another, that reference to the insolvent laws of the several States, must be made in order to get a correct view of the subject. ASSIGNNENT OF BREACHES, or ERRORS. - See BREACH; ERROR. - Assignees; persons to whom property has been transferred. In a conveyance to "A., his heirs and assigns," or "A., his executors, administrators, and assigns," &c., the word "assigns" is in reality mere surplusage, because the estate or interest passes without it. (See WORDS OF LIMITATION.) In a covenant by "A., his heirs and assigns," the word "assigns" includes all those who take either immediately or remotely from or under A., whether by conveyance, devise, descent or other act of law, e. g. as assignee from A.'s heir, or as heir to A.'s assignee, and so on, (L. R. 4 Q. B. p. 186; 5 Co. 17b; see COVENANT); and whether they take the feesimple, or merely a limited interest, e. g. by lease. 11 Ch. D. 273.

assignsnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

plural of assign

assignsverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

third-person singular simple present indicative of assign

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