Definition
The boundary lines of a parcel of land at its ends, as distinguished from the boundary lines along its sides. A contraction of "abuttals." In old conveyancing practice, a metes-and-bounds description might specify both buttals and sidings, with buttals identifying the terminal (end) boundaries and sidings identifying the lateral (side) boundaries, oriented by compass direction.
Common Confusion
BUTTALS vs. ABUTTALS vs. SIDINGS: These three terms appear together in old conveyancing instruments and are easily conflated. Abuttals is the broader term, encompassing all bounding lines of a parcel — the land that abuts on all sides. Buttals is the narrower, contracted form referring specifically to end boundaries. Sidings refers to the lateral boundaries. A researcher encountering the phrase "buttals and sidings" in a historical deed is reading a complete boundary description structured by orientation, not a redundant one. Treating buttals as simply synonymous with abuttals will cause the researcher to miss this end-versus-side distinction.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of old conveyancing, nearly extinct in modern practice. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in historical deed records, colonial-era land grants, and early American or English title chains. Its relevance today is confined to title disputes requiring interpretation of archaic instrument language, adverse possession claims resting on ancient deeds, and historical land survey reconstruction.
The key research trap is treating buttals as interchangeable with abuttals without recognizing that historical instruments used them with precision — buttals for ends, sidings for sides. A deed specifying "buttals and sidings, east, west, north and south" was not being redundant; it was providing a structured description distinguishing terminal from lateral bounds. Misreading this structure could produce a distorted understanding of the parcel's boundaries as described in the original instrument.
Researchers working with arable land descriptions — ridges, furrows, and short strips common in English open-field agriculture — should also note that butts (a closely related term identified in Rapalje & Lawrence) referred to the short ends of arable ridges or furrows, which is the likely spatial origin of the conveyancing usage. This agricultural context can illuminate why end boundaries were given a distinct terminological treatment.
Because the term cross-references abuttals so directly, any corpus search for buttals should be paired with searches for abuttals, butts, and sidings to recover the full range of relevant historical instruments.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are in close agreement on the core meaning. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's give nearly identical minimal entries, treating buttals as a simple cross-reference to abuttals. Rapalje & Lawrence identify it as a contraction of abuttals and usefully connect it to butts — the short ends of arable land strips — adding agricultural context absent from the other sources.
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the most substantive entry and the most useful for researchers. Burrill distinguishes buttals from sidings explicitly, supplies the phrase "buttals and sidings, east, west, north and south" drawn from Cro. Jac. 183 (Croke's Jacobean reports), and situates the term firmly in "old conveyancing." This is the only historical source that preserves the functional distinction between end and side boundaries — a distinction the shorter entries in Black's and Bouvier's elide entirely by collapsing buttals into abuttals without elaboration.
No historical source addresses American statutory or judicial treatment of the term, reflecting its status as an inherited English conveyancing form rather than a term that generated independent American legal development.
Jurisdictional Note
Buttals as an active conveyancing term belongs to English legal history and early American practice derived from it. Modern American jurisdictions do not use the term in current drafting. Its legal significance today arises only when courts or title examiners must interpret historical instruments in which it appears, typically governed by the interpretive rules of the jurisdiction where the land is located.