Definition
In legal usage, enlarging means extending or expanding the scope of something beyond its existing limits. The term appears in two primary contexts:
1. Enlarging statutes. A statute that extends or expands the reach of the common law, going beyond what common law rules would otherwise provide. Distinguished from statutes that merely restate, codify, or restrict existing common law. Remedial statutes are frequently described as enlarging when they broaden access to relief that the common law did not afford.
2. Enlarging an estate. The act of increasing the quantum or duration of an interest in land. When a party holding a remainder or reversionary interest releases that interest to the current possessor, the possessor's estate is enlarged — for example, a life tenant who receives a release of the fee simple remainder becomes the holder of the full fee, enlarging what was a limited possessory interest into an absolute one.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Present participle and gerund of enlarge — making larger or more expansive in any general sense.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To make larger; to increase in quantity or dimensions; to extend in scope; also, to set free from confinement.
The gap is meaningful in one direction: common usage treats enlarging as a general descriptor of any increase in size. Legal usage carries precision in both contexts above — an enlarging statute has a defined relationship to common law, and enlarging an estate refers to a specific transactional mechanism with defined consequences for title, not merely a vague expansion of rights.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Enlarging statute: A remedial or corrective statute that extends the common law by creating new rights, expanding existing remedies, or bringing new persons or situations within legal protection. Contrasted with statutes in derogation of common law, which are read narrowly; enlarging statutes are typically read liberally in favor of the persons they were designed to benefit.
Enlarging an estate: The specific expansion of a landholder's interest through release, merger, or similar operation. Most commonly encountered in materials on the law of future interests and conveyancing.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering enlarging in historical sources should determine immediately which context applies — statutory construction or property law — because the interpretive consequences differ substantially.
In statutory construction, the label "enlarging statute" carries interpretive weight. Courts historically applied canons of construction differently depending on whether a statute was enlarging versus restrictive: statutes in derogation of common law were read narrowly; enlarging statutes were read broadly. Researchers working in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century statutory interpretation materials will encounter this distinction frequently. The canon is less mechanically applied in modern courts, which sometimes subordinates it to plain-meaning analysis, so be cautious about assuming historical characterizations translate directly to modern doctrine.
In property law, enlarging of estates is a concept embedded in classical future-interests doctrine. It arises in materials on release, merger, and conveyancing. Researchers working in colonial, early American, or English property records will encounter it in the context of land transfers where one party holds a particular estate and receives a release from a remainder-holder. The Blackstone citation in Bouvier (2 Bl. Comm. 324) and the statutory canon citation (1 Bl. Comm. 86, 87) in Black's Second Edition are reliable anchors for tracking the concept into English sources.
Be alert to the fact that enlarging appears in older materials as a gerund modifying other legal concepts — enlarging bail, enlarging time — where the meaning is simply procedural extension (granting more time or expanded conditions). These uses are context-dependent and distinct from the two primary legal meanings above.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in close agreement. All three define enlarging as extending or making more comprehensive, and all three anchor the definition to the enlarging statute as the primary example. Bouvier adds the estate dimension with the specific life estate / remainder example and the Blackstone citation, making it the most complete of the three for property research. Black's Second Edition adds the qualifier "remedial statute," aligning enlarging statutes with the broader category of remedial legislation — a connection that aids researchers using statutory construction materials, where "remedial" carried interpretive consequences under the liberal construction canon.
None of the historical dictionaries address the procedural sense of enlarging (as in enlarging time or enlarging bail), which appears in practice materials and court rules of the same era. Researchers should not assume that silence in these dictionary entries means the procedural usage is incorrect — it was simply treated as too ordinary to require separate definition.
Jurisdictional Note
The enlarging statute concept developed primarily in English common law and was carried into American legal writing. Its application in American jurisdictions tracked state-specific approaches to statutory construction; some states codified liberal-construction rules for remedial statutes, while others left the canon to judicial discretion. The enlarging of estates concept is rooted in classical common law property doctrine and may be displaced or modified by state property reform statutes, particularly those affecting future interests and the Rule Against Perpetuities.