Definition
A cofy is an archaic term for a transcript or duplicate of an original legal writing — such as a copy of a patent, charter, or deed. The term is a variant spelling of "copy" appearing in older legal documents and reference materials, reflecting historical orthographic inconsistency in legal drafting and transcription practice.
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Common Confusion
"Cofy" is not a distinct legal concept separate from "copy." It is best understood as a scribal or typographical variant of that word, and researchers who encounter it in historical documents should treat it as equivalent to "copy" in context. Do not read independent legal significance into the spelling variation itself.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with early English legal manuscripts, land records, or patent materials may encounter "cofy" as a rendering of "copy" and mistake it for a specialized technical term. The variation reflects the fluid orthography common in medieval and early modern legal writing, where standardized spelling had not yet taken hold — even in formal instruments like deeds and royal charters.
The practical research implication is indexing and search: full-text searches of digitized historical corpora using the modern spelling "copy" will not surface documents or entries using "cofy." Researchers should include variant spellings when conducting corpus searches across pre-18th-century materials. Black's Law Dictionary's supplemental entry exists precisely to flag this kind of variant for legal researchers — not to establish "cofy" as a term of art in its own right.
There is no material legal distinction between a cofy and a copy in the sense used by the historical sources. The evidentiary and doctrinal rules governing copies of instruments apply equally regardless of which spelling appears in the source document.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) defines cofy simply as "the transcript or double of an original writing; as the copy of a patent, charter, deed, etc." The entry is brief and explicitly equates the term with "copy," offering no distinct doctrinal content. It functions as a cross-reference entry rather than a substantive legal definition. No other major historical legal dictionaries appear to include "cofy" as an independent headword; its appearance in Black's supplemental material confirms its status as a variant form warranting recognition but not elaboration. The definition's reference to patents, charters, and deeds situates the term in the domain of formal instruments — consistent with the kinds of documents most likely to be reproduced in official transcripts during the medieval and early modern periods.
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