Definition
A Law French term meaning to waste or destroy. In its primary sense, degaster denotes the act of wasteful destruction of property — particularly the laying waste of land, buildings, or other estate. Black's Law Dictionary (2nd ed.) adds a secondary gloss: privation by fraud, suggesting the term could encompass not only physical destruction but also wrongful deprivation of property through deceitful means.
The term appears in historical pleading and real property contexts, where waste by a tenant or other party in possession was actionable. Degaster is the verbal form; related nominal forms (gast, degaste, degasta) carried the sense of that which has been wasted or destroyed.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No standard English entry. The term does not survive in ordinary modern usage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded. By the nineteenth century the term had passed entirely out of common English.
The word is Law French, not English, and its absence from both Wiktionary and Webster's 1913 reflects its purely technical legal provenance. Researchers encountering the term in older sources should not seek a common-language anchor — the meaning is wholly a product of medieval legal vocabulary imported into Anglo-Norman practice.
Common Confusion
Degaster is sometimes loosely treated as synonymous with the English legal term WASTE, but the relationship is directional: degaster is the Law French source from which the doctrine of waste draws historical vocabulary, not a synonym in current use. The secondary meaning noted in Black's 2nd ed. — privation by fraud — has no direct counterpart in the modern waste doctrine, which focuses on physical or economic injury to property rather than fraudulent deprivation. Researchers should be careful not to collapse the two senses when reading older sources.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical evolution term. Degaster appears almost exclusively in pre-eighteenth-century legal sources, Law French dictionaries, and treatises on real property and tenure. Researchers will encounter it primarily when working with:
— Medieval and early modern English real property pleadings, where waste by tenants for life or years was a cognizable wrong.
— Glossaries and Law French reference works cited in historical treatises (Kelham's Law French Dictionary is the authority Burrill cites directly).
— Secondary scholarship on the development of the waste doctrine in English common law.
The divergence between the two Black's editions is a small but meaningful research flag. The 1st edition gives only the simple definition "to waste"; the 2nd edition adds "privation by fraud." This expansion may reflect editorial interpretation rather than a distinct historical usage, and researchers should not treat the fraud gloss as well-established doctrine without independent verification. No primary source authority is cited by either edition for that secondary meaning.
The term will not appear in American statutory or case law in any operative sense. Its value is interpretive and historical — useful for understanding the vocabulary of older English and colonial pleadings, not for constructing contemporary legal arguments.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: to waste. Burrill is the most detailed, providing variant forms (gast, degaste, degasta) and tracing the term to Kelham's Law French Dictionary, which remains the standard reference for this vocabulary. This is the entry's most reliable chain of authority.
Black's 2nd ed. introduces "privation by fraud" as an additional meaning without citation. This gloss is not found in Burrill, which otherwise provides fuller treatment of the term. The discrepancy may reflect a broader editorial effort in the 2nd edition to capture equitable dimensions of older terms, but the fraud meaning should be treated as secondary and unverified unless the researcher can locate supporting primary sources independently.
None of the historical dictionaries provide case or treatise citations illustrating degaster in use, which limits the depth of analysis available from dictionary sources alone. Researchers needing contextual usage should consult Kelham directly or period treatises on waste such as Coke on Littleton or early Bracton scholarship.