AWAIT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

AWAITAuthored

The Law Mind • 672 words

Definition

A term of historical legal usage, now largely archaic, signifying the act of lying in wait or waylaying another person. In early English statutes and common law sources, "await" carried a specific sense of deliberate concealment with intent to intercept, ambush, or waylay — conduct treated as a distinct and aggravated form of criminal activity, separate from an open assault or ordinary trespass.

The term does not carry an active technical definition in modern legal usage. It survives in legal discourse almost exclusively as a relic found in old statutory language, abridgments, and historical treatises.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To wait for; to expect; to be in store for; to watch or observe.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To watch for; to wait for; to stay for; to expect. Also, to be in readiness for, as in "a glorious reward awaits the good."

The gap between common and legal meaning here is historically significant. In ordinary English — both modern and nineteenth-century — "await" is passive and neutral, describing simple expectation or anticipation. The legal meaning embedded in old statutes was neither passive nor neutral: it denoted active, concealed lying in wait with hostile purpose. A traveler "awaiting" a friend at a crossroads and a criminal "awaiting" a victim along a road were described by the same verb, but only the latter triggered the legal term of art.

Common Confusion

Researchers encountering "await" in historical statutory or plea roll material should not read it as a synonym for mere waiting, delay, or the modern sense of anticipation. The legal term is closer in operational meaning to "ambush" or "waylaying" than to its common English counterpart. Confusion arises when transcribers or secondary sources interpret archaic statutory language through a modern linguistic lens, stripping the term of its criminal connotation.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is a navigational hazard for researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century English statutory sources, abridgments, or criminal law treatises. "Await" appears in statutes targeting highwaymen, robbers, and others who intercepted travelers — contexts where the lying-in-wait element was both legally operative and aggravating. Misreading it as simple waiting behavior can distort the meaning of the source text entirely.

In the Law Mind corpus, encounters with "await" as a legal term will cluster in materials from the medieval and early modern English statutory tradition. It is unlikely to appear as a defined operative term in American sources, though it may surface in reception-era digests or commentaries that preserve English statutory language verbatim. Researchers tracing the history of ambush, waylaying, or aggravated assault doctrines should note this term as a likely predecessor concept in the genealogy of those offenses.

The proximity of the entries for AWAIT and AWARD in all three source dictionaries is an artifact of alphabetical arrangement, not conceptual relationship. Researchers scanning historical dictionaries should be careful not to conflate the two.

Historical Dictionary Support

All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Bouvier's — agree closely on the definition: a term from old statutes meaning lying in wait or waylaying. The entries are brief and consistently treat the term as historical rather than current even at the time of their publication. None of the dictionaries offer a developed treatment, a case citation directly interpreting the term, or a discussion of its statutory context.

Bouvier's adds modest texture by defining "await" as "to lay in wait; to waylay," which slightly sharpens the active and predatory character of the conduct compared to Black's more neutral phrasing. Neither dictionary traces the specific statutes in which the term appeared, which limits their utility as standalone research tools for this term. Researchers seeking the statutes of waylaying and highway robbery in which "await" was operative will need to go beyond dictionary sources to the statutes themselves and to abridgments such as those of Fitzherbert or Rolle.

AWAITmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A term used in old statutes, signifying a lying in wait, or waylaying. AWARD, v. To grant, concede, ad- judge to. Thus, a jury awards damages; the court awards an injunction. AWARD, n. The decision or determina- tion rendered by arbitrators or commissioners, or other private or extrajudicial deciders, up- on a controversy submitted to them; also the writing or document embodying such decis- ion.

AWAITmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

To lay in wait; to waylay. AWARD (Law Latin, awarda, awar- dum, Old French, agarda from à garder, to keep, preserve, to be guarded, or kept: so called because it is imposed on the parties to be observed or kept by them. Spelman, Gloss.). The judgment or decision of arbitrators, or referees, on a matter submitted to them. The writing containing such judgment. Cowel; Termes de la Ley; Jenk. 137; Bill- ings, Aw. 119; Watson, Arb. 174; Russell, Arb. 234. Requisites of. To be conclusive, the award should be consonant with and follow the subinission, and affect only the parties to the submission; otherwise, it is an as- sumption of power, and not binding; Lutw. 530 (Onyons v. Cheese); Stra. 903; Rep. Finch 141; 24 E. L. & Eq. 346; 8 Beav. 361; 13 Johns. 27, 268; 17 Vt. 9; 3 Ν. Η. 82; 13 Mass. 396; 11 Cush. 37; 18 Me. 251; 40 id. 194; 25 Conn. 71; 3 Harr. Del. 22; 5 Pa. 274; 12 Gill & J. 156, 456; Litt. 83; 13 Miss. 172; 25 Ala. 351; 7 Cra. 599. See 11 Johns. 61; 1 Call 500; 7 Pa. 134; 50 N. J. Eq. 103; 27 Ill. 374. Where it exceeds the terms of the submission, it is not void, where the judge on confirmation excludes as much as is incompetent; 36 S. C. 80; but it is so where damages are allowed in a lump sum, in which are included matters not submitted to them; 21 N. E. Rep. (N. Y.) 398. It must be final and certain; Morse, Arb. 383: 5 Ad. & E. 147; 2 S. & S. 130; 8 S. & R. 340; 2 Pa. 206; 9 Johns. 43; 22 Wend. 125; 4 Cush. 317, 396; 13 Vt. 53; 40 Me. 194; 2 Green, N. J. 333; 4 Md. Ch. Dec. 199; 1 Gilm. 92; 2 Patt. & H. 442; 3 Ohio 266; 5 Blackf. 128; 4 id. 489; 1 Ired. 466; 3 Cal. 431; 1 Ark. 206; 4 111. 428; 75 id. 24; 2 Fla. 157; 13 Miss. 712; 53 id. 587; 2 M'Cord 279; 5 Wheat. 394; 12 id. 377; 62 Hun 568; 50 N. Y. 228; 74 id. 108; 64 N. C. 332; 103 Mass. 167; 54 Ala. 78; and see 4 Conn. 50; 6 Johns. 39; 6 Mass. 46; conclusively adju- dicating all the matters submitted; 6 Md. 135; 1 M'Mull. 302; 2 Cal. 299; 5 Wall. 419; 83 Me. 71; and stating the decision in such language as to leave no doubt of the arbitrator's intention, or the nature and ex- tent of the duties imposed by it on the par- ties; 2 Cal. 299, and cases above. Anaward reserving the determination of future dis- putes; 6 Md. 185; an award directing a bond without naming a penalty; 5 Coke 77; Rolle, Abr. Arbitration 2, 4; an awar¹ that one shall give security for the perfon- ance of some act or payment of money, without specifying the kind of security, are invalid; Viner, Abr. Arbit. 2, 12; Bacon, Abr. Arbit. E. 11, and cases above. So is one that finds that a party is entitled to re- ceive his final payment and fails to ascertain

AWAITmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

A term: used in old statutes, signifying a lying in wait, or waylaying. 110. . AZURE. AWARD, v. To grant, concede, adjudge to. Thus, a jury awards daniages; the court awards an injunction. Starkey v. Minneapolis, 19 Minn. 206 (Gil. 16¥). AWARD, n. The decision or determination rendered by arbitrators or commissioners, or other private or extrajudicial deciders, upon a controversy submitted to thei ; also the writing or document embodying such decision. Halnon v. Halnon, 55 Vt 321; Henderson v. Beaton, 52 Tex. 43; Peters v. Peirce, 8 Mass. 398; Benjamin v. U. S., 29 Ct. Cl. 417.

AWAITv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To watch for; to look out for. [Obs.] To wait on, serve, or attend. [Obs.] To wait for; to stay for; to expect. See Expect. Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat, Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night. Milton. To be in store for; to be ready or in waiting for; as, a glorious reward awaits the good. O Eve, some farther change awaits us night. Milton.

AWAITv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To watch. [Obs.] Chaucer. To wait (on or upon). [Obs.] To wait; to stay in waiting. Darwin.

AWAITn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A waiting for; ambush; watch; watching; heed. [Obs.] Chaucer.

awaitverb

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.

To wait for. | To expect. | To be in store for; to be ready or in waiting for. | To serve or attend; to wait on, wait upon. | To watch, observe. | To wait; to stay in waiting.

awaitnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A waiting for; ambush. | Watching, watchfulness, suspicious observation.

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