CIRCULATION - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CIRCULATIONAuthored

The Law Mind • 937 words

Definition

In law, circulation refers primarily to the flow of currency, banknotes, bills, or other instruments intended to function as money through commercial and financial channels. The term carries particular weight in banking and tax law, where it describes the act of issuing or putting into active use notes, bills, or certificates that pass from hand to hand as a medium of exchange.

Two principal legal meanings appear across the corpus:

1. Banking and currency law: The issuance and active use of banknotes, bills, or certificates by a bank or financial institution as a substitute for or supplement to coined money. Statutes imposing taxes on bank circulation use the term to capture all instruments a bank puts out that are intended to circulate as currency, regardless of their precise form.

2. Diffusion of written or printed matter: In defamation, obscenity, and press law, circulation describes the dissemination of a publication — newspaper, pamphlet, or similar instrument — to the public. The extent of circulation can bear on damages, licensing requirements, or regulatory thresholds.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of moving in a circle or returning to the point of origin; passing from place to place or person to person; currency or circulating coin; the measurement of diffusion; blood movement through the body.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Movement in a recurring course; passing freely from person to person; currency or circulating coin and bills; the extent to which something is diffused.

The common meaning captures the physical and biological senses well enough that researchers may underestimate how technically narrow the legal sense becomes. In banking law, circulation is not simply money moving around — it is specifically the act of a bank putting instruments into use as money, which triggers tax liability and regulatory consequences. The diffusion sense familiar from everyday usage (a rumor in circulation, a newspaper's circulation figures) has its own legal weight in press and defamation contexts that is distinct from the banking meaning.

Common Confusion

Circulation and circulating medium are related but not interchangeable. Circulation describes the act or state of instruments moving as currency; circulating medium is the broader category of instruments capable of functioning in that role — coin, notes, certificates, and anything else accepted as a medium of exchange. Black's 2nd ed. flags that circulating medium is actually broader than "money," encompassing any instrument used for exchanges or purchases. A researcher who treats the two as synonymous may misread the scope of a taxing statute or regulatory provision.

Why It Matters in Research

The most consequential use of this term in the Law Mind corpus appears in federal banking and taxation materials from the mid-to-late nineteenth century, when Congress imposed taxes on the circulation of state bank notes as part of the effort to establish a national currency system. Statutes from this era use "circulation" as a defined term of art, and cases interpreting those statutes turn on whether a particular instrument — a certificate, a bill, a draft — qualifies as something "intended to circulate as money." Researchers working in this period must read the term in its statutory context rather than importing modern assumptions.

In press law and defamation research, circulation appears as a factual and sometimes jurisdictional threshold: the size of a publication's circulation could determine venue, the measure of damages, or whether a licensing or registration requirement applied. Historical sources do not always clearly separate these two legal meanings, which can create confusion when the same entry or headnote uses circulation loosely.

Bouvier's cross-reference to "General Circulation" signals that the full treatment in that dictionary is organized under a compound entry. Researchers using Bouvier's should navigate to that entry rather than treating the stub under the plain term as complete.

The banking law meaning largely receded after the Federal Reserve system standardized currency issuance, so post-1913 sources treat "circulation" with less technical specificity than pre-Federal Reserve sources. A definition that looks current in an 1890 treatise may not map cleanly onto twentieth-century materials.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's 2nd ed. provides the most precise legal definition in the corpus, anchoring the banking-law meaning in federal cases and specifying that the term covers all currency, circulating notes, bills, and certificates intended to circulate as money. The cases cited — U.S. v. White and U.S. v. Wilson — interpret the term in the context of federal bank tax statutes and are the primary authorities Black's relies upon for this definition. The entry also introduces circulating medium as a related but broader concept.

Bouvier's offers only a cross-reference stub directing users to "General Circulation," which limits its utility as a standalone source. This is a recognized organizational feature of Bouvier's: compound and qualified forms of terms often carry the substantive content.

Anderson's entry, as reproduced in the source material, does not address circulation directly; the excerpt appears to concern ecclesiastical associations and is likely a contextual fragment from a neighboring entry. Researchers should not rely on Anderson's for this term without locating a complete and unambiguous entry.

Webster's 1913 is consistent with the legal meaning in its third definition — "currency; circulating coin; notes, bills, etc., current for coin" — confirming that the financial sense was well established in general usage by the time the major legal dictionaries were compiled.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Banking and Currency Law; Defamation and Press Law.

CIRCULATIONcrossref

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

See GENERAL CIRCU-

CIRCULATIONmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned. All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied assent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. Each member is bound by the law of the society, - the written organic law, books of discipline, collections of precedents, usages and customs. The civil courts have only to do with the rights of property: they cannot revise an act of discipline, excommunication, etc., though they may inquire whether such act was the act of the church or of persons who did not constitute the church. Where property is in dispute, the civil court inquires: (1) Was the property or fund devoted, by the express terms of the gift, grant, or sale by which it was acquired, to the support of a specific doctrine or belief, or was it acquired for the general use of the society for religious purposes, with no other limitation? If so, when necessary to protect a trust, the court will inquire into the faith or practice of the Whatever passes from person to person, as, money, currency; also, the fact and the extent of a thing's being circulated. Certificates of indebtedness issued by a person or a corporation are not taxable as "circulation," under Rev. St., § 3108, unless calculated or intended to circulate or to be used as money. 13 Bl. Com. 57-58; 4 id. 422, 424; 1 Steph. Hist. Cr. L. Eng. 100. 218 Ct. Cl. 457; 15 M. & W. 208. 3 Act 3 March, 1879: 20 St. L. 360, 1 Sup. R. S. 456. 4 United States v. Noelke, 17 Blatch. 557 (1880); Commerford v. Thompson, 2 Flip. 615 (1880). 5 United States v. Wilson, 106 U. S. 6:20 (1882). See

CIRCULATIONmain

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

As used in statutes providing for taxes on the circulation of banks, this term includes all currency or circulating notes or bills, or certificates or bills intended to circulate as money. U. S. v. White (C. C.) 19 Fed. 723; U. S. v. Wilson, 106 U. S. 620, 2 Sup. Ct. 85, 27 LL. Ed. 310. —Circulating medium. comprehensive than the term ‘‘money.” as it is the medium of exchanges, or purchases and sales, whether it be gold or silver coin or any other article.

CIRCULATIONn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began. This continual circulation of human things. Swift. The act of passing from place to place or person to person; free diffusion; transmission. The true doctrines of astronomy appear to have had some popular circulation. Whewell. Currency; circulating coin; notes, bills, etc., current for coin. The extent to which anything circulates or is circulated; the measure of diffusion; as, the circulation of a newspaper. The movement of the blood in the blood-vascular system, by which it is brought into close relations with almost every living elementary constituent. Also, the movement of the sap in the vessels and tissues of plants.

circulationnoun

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.

The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began. | The act of passing from place to place or person to person; free diffusion; transmission. | Currency; circulating coins; notes, bills, etc., current for coin. | The extent to which anything circulates or is circulated; the measurement of diffusion | The movement of the blood in the circulatory system, by which it is brought into close relations with the cells and tissues of the body; (loosely) the circulatory system. | The movement of the sap in the vessels and tissues of plants. | the number of a newspaper or a magazine has been sold.

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