Definition
Enlargement has two primary legal meanings:
1. ENLARGEMENT OF ESTATE: The expansion of a lesser freehold interest into a greater one. The classic instance arises in the law of entail: when a tenant in tail has carved out a base fee from the entailed estate, and that base fee subsequently becomes united in the same person who holds the remainder or reversion in fee simple, the lesser estate is said to be enlarged into the greater. The base fee merges upward and is absorbed into the fee simple absolute, extinguishing the intermediate limitations. No conveyance is required — the enlargement operates by operation of law upon the union of interests in a single holder.
2. ENLARGEMENT OF TIME: An extension of a deadline or procedural time limit granted by a court or, in some contexts, by agreement of the parties. A motion for enlargement asks the court to extend the period within which a pleading must be filed, a response served, or an act performed. Modern procedural rules (e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)) govern when such extensions may be granted, distinguishing between requests made before a deadline expires and those made after (the latter requiring a showing of excusable neglect).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An act of making something larger; an expanded image or photograph; freedom from confinement; diffuseness of speech.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of increasing in size or bulk; expansion of powers or character; a setting at large or release from confinement.
The common meanings are not wrong so much as incomplete. Lay readers encountering "enlargement" in a legal document will likely read it as simple expansion. In estate law, however, the term carries a precise doctrinal meaning — the absorption of a lesser interest into a greater one by operation of law — that has nothing to do with physical size. The procedural meaning (extension of time) is closer to the everyday sense of "making something bigger" but requires understanding the specific mechanics of court-granted relief.
Common Confusion
Enlargement of estate is sometimes confused with merger, and the two concepts are closely related — both involve the union of estates in one person producing a larger combined interest. The distinction is mainly one of framing: merger typically describes the absorption of a lesser estate by a greater (e.g., a life estate swallowed by a fee simple held by the same person), while enlargement describes the base fee expanding upward into fee simple by reason of the same union. In practice, historical sources use the terms with some overlap. Researchers should read both doctrines together when tracing estate consolidation in older conveyancing materials.
Enlargement of time is sometimes used interchangeably with extension of time or continuance. Strictly, a continuance postpones a hearing or trial; an enlargement extends a filing or response deadline. Modern procedural rules tend to use "extension" rather than "enlargement," so older pleadings and practice manuals using "enlargement" should be understood to refer to what current rules call an extension.
Why It Matters in Research
The estate-law meaning of enlargement is largely a historical concept. It is rooted in English property law governing the fee tail, a form of ownership abolished or severely restricted across American jurisdictions. Researchers encountering "enlargement" in pre-twentieth-century American or English conveyancing instruments, equity pleadings, or real property treatises must engage with the doctrine of base fees and remainders — a framework that has little operational significance in modern American practice but remains essential for reading historical chains of title.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is partially corrupted in the available text (the definition trails off into material about enrollment rolls), but the surviving fragment correctly identifies the core scenario: tenant in tail, base fee, union with remainder or reversion in fee. This aligns with the standard treatment in English equity and property law. Researchers using nineteenth-century American practice materials should be alert to the fact that the fee tail was modified or abolished at varying times by different states, which affects whether enlargement in this doctrinal sense was ever operative in a given jurisdiction.
For procedural enlargement of time, the research trap runs in the opposite direction: modern practitioners use "extension," but older federal and state procedural rules, equity practice manuals, and chancery materials use "enlargement" as the standard term. A keyword search limited to "extension of time" in pre-1940 materials will miss a significant body of relevant procedural authority.
The two meanings rarely appear in the same source without context making the sense clear, but researchers working across property and procedure in the same historical period should remain alert to the ambiguity.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence addresses the estate-law meaning directly, though the available text is truncated. What survives identifies the essential elements accurately: the base fee created by a tenant in tail, the subsequent union with the remainder or reversion in fee, and the operation of law producing the enlargement. This is consistent with the treatment in standard English property law authorities. The dictionary does not appear to address enlargement of time, which reflects its primary orientation toward substantive common law rather than procedure.
Webster's 1913 captures the "setting at large" or release meaning that occasionally appears in older legal texts — particularly in equity, where "enlargement" could refer to a prisoner's discharge from custody on giving security, or to a debtor's release from confinement. This usage is largely obsolete but may appear in nineteenth-century equity reports and should not be confused with either of the primary modern legal meanings.
Neither Rapalje & Lawrence nor Webster's 1913 addresses the procedural enlargement-of-time meaning with any specificity, which reflects that this usage matured largely through court rules and practice manuals rather than through doctrinal exposition.
Jurisdictional Note
The estate-law meaning is most relevant to English law and to American jurisdictions that historically recognized the fee tail. Most American states converted the fee tail to a fee simple by statute relatively early, which limited the practical occasions for enlargement to arise. Procedural enlargement of time is universal in concept but governed entirely by jurisdiction-specific rules; the applicable standard (good cause, excusable neglect, or consent) varies by court and rule set.