Definition
A Latin term from Roman and civil law meaning to throw or cast out; to eject or dispossess a person from land or property. In its technical legal sense, ejicere describes the act of excluding or removing someone from possession — either by preventing entry or by expelling a person already in occupation, depending on the tradition consulted. The term appears principally in historical common law pleading and in civilian sources, and is the conceptual root of the English action of ejectment.
Common Confusion
Ejicere is frequently treated as interchangeable with dejicere in secondary sources, but classical civilian authorities drew a meaningful distinction between the two. Calvinus, citing Spiegelius, assigns ejicere the narrower meaning of keeping out one who has not yet entered — that is, excluding a claimant from taking possession in the first place. Dejicere, by contrast, describes the forcible removal of a person already in possession. The distinction tracks a practical difference: prevention of entry versus expulsion after entry. Bracton uses both terms, but the line between them blurs in later common law usage, where ejicere and its derivatives are absorbed into the general vocabulary of ejectment without preserving the civilian distinction. Researchers working across civil law and common law sources should not assume the terms are synonymous.
Why It Matters in Research
Ejicere matters primarily as a source term — the Latin root from which the English action of ejectment and the procedural form ejection derive. Researchers tracing the history of real property actions will encounter ejicere in Bracton and in glossators commenting on Roman sources; understanding its civilian meaning helps clarify what Bracton was importing into early English law and what he was adapting.
The ejicere/dejicere distinction is almost entirely invisible in English common law materials after the medieval period. By the time ejectment becomes a standard form of action, the nuance is lost. If you are reading early Bracton passages (fol. 165–166 are the key references) and encounter both terms in close proximity, apply the Calvinus distinction: ejicere for exclusion before entry, dejicere for expulsion after entry. Treating them as synonyms in that context misreads the source.
For corpus researchers, this term is an entry point into a cluster of related concepts — the writ of novel disseisin, the action of ejectment, and the civilian law of possession. It does not appear in modern statutory or case law in its Latin form; its significance is historical and etymological rather than doctrinal.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary English-language legal dictionary source for this term. Burrill correctly identifies the etymology (e + jacere, out + to throw), flags Bracton as the relevant common law authority, and reproduces the Calvinus/Spiegelius distinction between ejicere and dejicere. This is a reliable treatment for its period.
What Burrill does not address: the procedural evolution from the Latin term to the English action of ejectment, or the degree to which the ejicere/dejicere distinction was ever operative in English courts as opposed to being purely a matter of civilian scholarship. Researchers should not assume that English courts applying ejectment doctrine were tracking the classical distinction — the evidence in Bracton suggests he was drawing on civilian learning, but the later common law action developed independently of that substrate.
No entry appears in Black's Law Dictionary early editions or Bouvier under this exact Latin form, though both treat ejectment and ejectio firmae at length.
Jurisdictional Note
Ejicere as a Latin term of art has no active jurisdictional footprint in modern American or English law. It is operative only in historical legal research involving medieval common law sources and civilian-influenced texts. Scholars working in Scottish law or mixed civil/common law jurisdictions may encounter it in older sources alongside dejicere with greater frequency than in purely English common law materials.