Definition
In legal usage, *bout* is an archaic Anglo-French term denoting the end or boundary line of a parcel of land — specifically the terminal line at the head or foot of a strip of land, as opposed to its sides. The phrase *bouts et côtés* (ends and sides) is the French counterpart to the English *butts and bounds*, the traditional method of describing land by its terminal points and lateral limits. In early conveyancing and feudal land records, a *bout* marked where a strip of land stopped; the word functioned as a technical delimiter in property descriptions drawn from French-influenced legal practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An apheretic (shortened) form of "about."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A turn or round of work; a contest or trial; a set-to at something — as in a fencing bout or a bout of illness.
Neither the modern nor the historical common meaning has any connection to the legal one. A researcher encountering *bout* in a conveyancing document or feudal grant should not import any sense of contest or approximation. The legal term is purely spatial and descriptive, indicating a terminal boundary line of land.
Why It Matters in Research
*Bout* appears almost exclusively in older land records, feudal grants, and French-origin conveyancing materials. Researchers working with colonial-era deeds, Canadian seigneurial records, or Louisiana land grants — where French legal tradition persisted — are most likely to encounter it. Its practical importance lies in recognizing *bouts et côtés* as the functional equivalent of *butts and bounds*, a pairing still occasionally encountered in historical title chains.
The primary trap is misreading *bout* as a vernacular or non-technical term. In a land description, it is doing precise legal work: it marks the end of a strip, not a side. Confusing the ends with the sides of a parcel can distort a boundary reconstruction.
Because the term does not appear in most English common law dictionaries and is absent from standard American legal reference works, researchers relying solely on English-language sources may miss it entirely. Burrill is one of the few English-language legal dictionaries to record it.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary English-language authority for this term in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill defines it concisely — "an end; a butt; the end of a piece of land; a line limiting it at the end" — and correctly pairs it with *bouts et côtés*, glossed as "ends and sides; butts and bounds," with attribution to Guyot's *Institutes Féodales*. This cross-reference to Guyot is significant: it anchors *bout* in civilian and feudal land law rather than in common law conveyancing practice.
English common law dictionaries largely omit the term because the native vocabulary preferred *butt* (a terminal boundary) and *bound* (a limit generally). *Bout* entered English legal usage through Norman-French influence and persisted longer in jurisdictions with French legal heritage. Burrill's entry is characteristically economical but accurate; it gives the researcher just enough to identify the term in context without elaborating on its practical application in title work.
Jurisdictional Note
The term has the most practical relevance in Louisiana, Quebec, and other jurisdictions where French feudal land-grant systems shaped early title records. In common law jurisdictions outside that tradition, *bout* as a standalone term is rare; *butt* and *bound* perform the same function in English.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: Metes and Bounds; Land Description; Butts and Bounds