Definition
A bequest is a gift of personal property made through a will. The person making the gift is the testator; the person receiving it is the legatee. Bequest and legacy are used interchangeably in most legal contexts, though some authorities treat legacy as the broader term encompassing all testamentary gifts and bequest as its functional synonym for personal property specifically.
Recognized subtypes:
Specific bequest: A gift of a particular, identified item or category of personal property — for example, a named painting, a specific bank account, or all personal property of a defined class. If the specific property no longer exists in the estate at death, the gift may fail by ademption.
General bequest: A gift payable out of the general assets of the estate, not tied to any particular property — most commonly a fixed sum of money.
Residuary bequest: A gift of whatever personal property remains after debts, expenses, taxes, and all other bequests have been satisfied. This is the catch-all provision that sweeps up estate assets not otherwise disposed of.
Executory bequest: A bequest of a future, deferred, or contingent interest — one that does not vest immediately but depends on some future event or condition.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To give as a bequest; bequeath — used as a verb.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of bequeathing or leaving by will; that which is left by will, especially personal property; a legacy; also, a gift.
The gap worth noting: In ordinary English, bequest drifts toward general gift-giving and is sometimes used loosely to describe any transfer at death, including real property. In legal usage, the term is historically confined to personal property. A testamentary transfer of real property is a devise, not a bequest. Researchers reading documents that use bequest to cover real estate should flag whether the author is being imprecise or whether the jurisdiction or era treated the distinction differently.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Specific bequest — identifies particular property; subject to ademption risk.
General bequest — payable from estate assets generally; typically a sum certain.
Residuary bequest — sweeps remaining personal estate after prior distributions.
Executory bequest — future or contingent; vesting depends on a subsequent event or condition.
Demonstrative bequest — a hybrid: a general bequest charged first against a specific fund, with the balance payable from general assets if that fund is insufficient.
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Why It Matters in Research
The bequest/devise distinction is one of the most consistent traps in historical sources. Older cases and statutes maintained a strict line: bequest (or legacy) for personal property, devise for real property. This distinction eroded through the twentieth century, and many modern statutes — including the Uniform Probate Code — use devise to cover all testamentary transfers regardless of property type. A researcher reading a nineteenth-century will dispute must apply the historical rule; reading a modern probate statute requires checking whether the jurisdiction has collapsed the distinction.
Bouvier's entry adds a doctrinal nuance that Black's glosses over: a bequest is not necessarily a gratuity. A legacy given in satisfaction of a debt owed by the testator, or in lieu of dower, is still legally a bequest. This matters when researching cases involving creditor claims against estates or elective share disputes — the form of the transfer does not determine its character as a bequest.
The executory bequest subtype connects this term to the rule against perpetuities and future interests doctrine. Researchers working on perpetuities problems in testamentary instruments should track whether a bequest is immediate or executory, as the classification affects vesting analysis.
Ademption is the primary trap for specific bequests. If the specific property has been sold, destroyed, or otherwise removed from the estate before death, the bequest typically fails and the legatee takes nothing. This rule is applied with varying strictness across jurisdictions and time periods, and the research trail for ademption cases runs through both equity and probate courts.
Residuary bequests are the destination for lapse analysis. When a specific or general bequest fails — because the legatee predeceased the testator, for example — the failed gift typically falls into the residue. Anti-lapse statutes in many jurisdictions redirect lapsed gifts to the legatee's descendants, which affects residuary calculations. Researchers cannot analyze a residuary bequest in isolation from the anti-lapse rules of the governing jurisdiction.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: a bequest is a gift of personal property by will, synonymous with legacy. The uniformity here is notable — this is one of the more settled terms in testamentary law, and the dictionary sources do not diverge on fundamentals.
Black's (both editions) provides the most structured treatment, identifying specific, residuary, and executory subtypes with brief definitions. Bouvier adds the important gloss that bequests need not be pure gratuities, citing New York authority for the proposition that legacies made in lieu of dower or in satisfaction of debt remain bequests in legal character. Burrill is the most economical, defining the term and cross-referencing Legacy and Devise without elaboration.
What the historical dictionaries collectively understate: the demonstrative bequest subtype, which courts developed to handle the hybrid case of a general gift charged against a specific fund. This category does real work in will construction disputes but receives little attention in the standard dictionary shelf. Researchers should look to treatises on wills and probate practice for fuller treatment of demonstrative bequests and their distinction from specific bequests for ademption purposes.
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Jurisdictional Note
Modern American jurisdictions following the Uniform Probate Code use devise as the generic term for all testamentary gifts, rendering the bequest/devise distinction largely obsolete in statutory analysis. States that have not adopted the UPC may still maintain the traditional distinction in case law and older statutory language. English and Commonwealth sources generally preserve the historical terminology more consistently, making the distinction more reliable as a guide in those materials.
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