Definition
A Latin maxim of civil and Roman law meaning to omit a duty, to fail or neglect to perform a required act, or to offend or transgress a legal obligation. The term is the verbal root from which several significant legal concepts descend: most notably delictum (a wrong or offense giving rise to liability) and the English delinquent (one who has failed in duty or committed an offense). In legal usage, delinquere captures both the passive sense of omission — failing to do what law or duty requires — and the active sense of transgression — committing an act that violates a legal norm.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a standard English word in modern common use. Appears only in legal, ecclesiastical, or Latin-derived scholarly contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not included as a headword in Webster's 1913; its English derivative "delinquent" is defined as one who fails in duty or commits an offense, especially a juvenile offender or one delinquent in payment.
The gap worth noting: Modern readers encountering delinquere in historical legal sources may read it as a narrow criminal term — shaped by the modern association of "delinquent" with juvenile crime. In the original Latin legal sense, the term is broader: it encompasses any actionable failure of duty, civil or criminal, making it a precursor concept to both tort and crime rather than either one exclusively.
Common Confusion
Delinquere is frequently encountered alongside delictum in Roman and civilian sources, and the two are sometimes treated as interchangeable. They are not. Delinquere is the verb — the act of failing, omitting, or transgressing. Delictum is the noun — the resulting wrong or legal fault that triggers liability. A researcher reading Burrill or other civilian-influenced dictionaries should treat delinquere as the conduct and delictum as the legal consequence of that conduct. The Spanish delito (crime or offense) is a closely related descendant but is jurisdiction-specific and carries criminal-law connotations more narrowly than the Latin root.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Roman law, civil law jurisdictions, or early American legal sources drawing on civilian tradition will encounter delinquere as a structural concept underlying the law of obligations. Its importance is navigational: spotting delinquere in a historical source signals that the author is operating in a civilian or mixed-jurisdiction framework, not a purely common-law one. Louisiana, Quebec, and Spanish colonial legal materials are particularly likely to deploy this term or its derivatives.
In Burrill's entry, the cross-reference to Calv. Lex. Jurid. (Calvin's Lexicon Juridicum, a standard Latin legal dictionary of the early modern period) places delinquere firmly in the civilian scholarly tradition. Researchers using Burrill to interpret early American or territorial sources should note this lineage: when delinquere or delictum appears in, for example, early Louisiana or Florida territorial law, the civilian meaning — not the common-law reading — governs.
The term also connects to the maxim Debet quis juri, referenced by Burrill, which concerns the obligation of persons to submit to law and bear the consequences of their own defaults. Researchers tracking the history of personal liability and fault-based obligation will find delinquere a useful node linking Roman sources to their later common-law and civil-law counterparts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's treatment is compact but precise. He correctly identifies the dual valence of the term — omission of duty and active transgression — and provides the most important derivative terms (delictum, delinquent, delito) with jurisdictional anchoring. The reference to White's New Recopilacion for the Spanish delito is useful for researchers working in Spanish colonial law contexts, where the civilian heritage of the term remained operative well into the nineteenth century.
What Burrill does not do is trace the doctrinal weight of the distinction between omission and commission embedded in the term — a distinction that became consequential in later civil law scholarship on delictual liability. For that development, researchers should consult primary civilian treatises rather than dictionary sources alone.
Jurisdictional Note
Delinquere and its derivatives retain doctrinal significance in civil law jurisdictions and mixed systems (Louisiana, Quebec, Puerto Rico, and historically in Spanish and French colonial territories). In purely common-law research contexts, the term functions primarily as historical background or comparative law reference rather than operative legal vocabulary.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — DELICT
Law Mind Encyclopedia — CRIMINAL LIABILITY
Law Mind Encyclopedia — ROMAN LAW FOUNDATIONS OF OBLIGATION