Definition
A Latin term used in old conveyancing meaning "I have demised." Dimisi appears as the operative verb in the formal lease formula dimisi, concessi, et ad firmam tradidi — "have demised, granted, and to farm let" — which served as the standard words of conveyance by which a lessor transferred possession of land to a lessee for a term. The phrase as a whole functioned as the operative language of a lease in the same way that "grant, bargain, and sell" operated in a deed of conveyance. Sometimes written demisi in older documents.
Why It Matters in Research
Dimisi is a term of paleographic and historical significance rather than living doctrine. Researchers will encounter it when working with pre-modern lease instruments, particularly English common law materials from the medieval and early modern periods. Its importance is almost entirely diagnostic: if you see dimisi (or demisi) in a primary source, you are reading a lease or farm-letting instrument, not a grant of fee simple or other freehold conveyance.
The shift from Latin to English conveyancing formulas was gradual. English statutes progressively restricted the use of Latin in legal documents, culminating in reforms that made English the required language for pleadings and instruments. Researchers consulting lease instruments from the seventeenth century and earlier should expect Latin operative words; by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, English equivalents dominate. Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 317–318) remains the most accessible secondary authority situating these words within the broader framework of leasehold estates, and both Black's and Burrill's cite that passage directly.
A practical trap: the full formula dimisi, concessi, et ad firmam tradidi bundles three distinct operative concepts — demise, grant, and farm-letting. Researchers should not assume that each word alone carries independent legal force; the phrase functioned as a unit. Stripping out individual words for independent analysis risks anachronism.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in close agreement on dimisi, and the similarity is unsurprising: both trace directly to the same passage in Blackstone. Burrill adds the Latinate note that dimisi derives from dimittere (to demise), which provides modest philological grounding but changes nothing substantive. Burrill also flags the variant spelling demisi and cross-references that form, which is useful since scribal and editorial variation between the two spellings is common in historical sources.
Neither dictionary elaborates on the legal consequences of using or omitting these words — whether, for instance, a lease lacking the precise formula would fail. That question is best pursued through Blackstone directly and through treatises on leasehold conveyancing. The historical dictionaries treat dimisi as a term of art to be identified and defined rather than analyzed.
Neither source addresses the decline of the formula or its displacement by English equivalents, which limits their utility for tracing the term's trajectory across time.
Jurisdictional Note
Dimisi is a term of English common law conveyancing with no independent American doctrinal life. It may appear in colonial-era American lease instruments that followed English forms, but American conveyancing practice moved to English-language formulas early and no American jurisdiction preserved Latin operative words as a requirement.