Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning "a going forth" or egress — the act or right of leaving or exiting a place. Used in legal instruments and statutes to describe the right of passage outward from land or premises. Egressus appears most commonly alongside its companion terms accessus (approach or access) and ingressus (entry), forming a triad that together expressed the full right of way: the right to come, to enter, and to depart.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Egress" in modern English means an exit or the right to exit; also used in architecture and fire safety to describe a means of leaving a building.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Egress" is defined as the act of going out or forth; departure; the power or liberty of departure — contrasted with ingress.
The common English word "egress" and the Latin legal term egressus are functionally close, but researchers should note that egressus in legal instruments was a term of art with defined legal weight. Its appearance in a deed or statute was not descriptive but operative — it conveyed or confirmed a specific legal right of exit, often tied to an easement or right of way, and its omission or inclusion could affect the scope of a grant.
Common Confusion
Egressus is frequently read as mere descriptive Latin rather than as a legally operative term. In old English conveyancing, the trio ingressus, egressus, and accessus (or recessus) functioned together as a conventional formula. Treating any one of the three as redundant or ornamental misreads the drafting convention: each term addressed a distinct aspect of the right of way. Researchers encountering only one or two terms in a document should consider whether the omission was intentional or an artifact of the source.
Why It Matters in Research
Egressus belongs to a formulaic vocabulary of old English property law that appears with high frequency in medieval and early modern conveyancing instruments, statutes, and pleadings. Several research traps apply:
First, the term operates almost exclusively within a set phrase. Encountering egressus in isolation in a historical source is unusual; finding it without ingressus and accessus should prompt scrutiny of whether the document is complete or has been excerpted.
Second, Burrill cites the Statute of Merton (c. 4) in connection with this term. The Statute of Merton (1235) is one of the earliest English statutes still on record, addressing, among other matters, common rights and rights of way. Researchers working with property rights in the thirteenth century and forward should understand egressus as vocabulary that traveled directly from statutory text into private instruments.
Third, as legal Latin gave way to English in formal instruments after the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730, egressus disappears from English legal drafting and is replaced by "egress" or absorbed into broader rights-of-way language. Sources after the mid-eighteenth century will rarely use the Latin form, but the underlying legal concept persists.
Fourth, the term has no meaningful role in American legal sources, which inherited the concept through equity and common law without preserving the Latin formula. Researchers using Law Mind sources spanning English and American materials should not expect terminological continuity across that divide.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary shelf source covering this term. His entry is concise but precise: he correctly identifies the statutory anchor in the Statute of Merton and cross-references ingressus and accessus as companion terms, which is the essential structural point. The citation to 4 Inst. 53 appended to the entry is attributed to Coke's Fourth Institutes and is associated with a separate maxim (Ei nihil turpe, cui nihil satis) that appears to have been placed in Burrill's entry by proximity or typographical adjacency rather than substantive connection to egressus itself. Researchers should treat that maxim citation as unrelated to the definition of egressus.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionaries provide independent entries for this term. Its absence from later dictionaries reflects the term's obsolescence as a live term of art rather than any dispute about its meaning.
Jurisdictional Note
Egressus is a term of old English law with no distinct American variant. The right it describes — egress as a component of an easement or right of way — is fully recognized across common law jurisdictions, but the Latin terminology did not survive transplantation into American legal practice.