Definition
Entirety means the whole of something, as opposed to a part or share. In legal usage, the term carries specific force in two contexts:
1. Property law (tenancy by the entirety). When land or property is conveyed to a husband and wife, they are said to be seised of the entirety — meaning neither holds a separable fractional share, but both together hold the whole. This distinguishes the marital estate from joint tenancy (where co-owners hold per my et per tout, by the half and by the whole) and from tenancy in common (where each holds a distinct proportional interest). The doctrine flows from the common law fiction of marital unity: husband and wife were one legal person, and therefore could not hold separate moieties.
2. Contracts and obligations. An entire contract or entire obligation is one that must be performed completely before any right to compensation arises — the consideration is indivisible. Courts distinguish entire contracts from severable (or divisible) contracts, where partial performance may entitle a party to partial recovery. The characterization as entire or severable determines whether a breach of part defeats the whole.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The whole; the complete amount.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The state of being entire; completeness. That which is entire; the whole.
The ordinary meaning of entirety is close enough to its legal meaning to seem transparent, but this closeness is a trap. In common speech, entirety is simply a synonym for totality. In law, the term does significant structural work: in property, it describes a specific form of co-ownership with legal consequences (protection from individual creditors, no unilateral severance) that have nothing to do with mere completeness. A researcher who reads "seised of the entirety" as simply meaning "holding all of the property" will miss the tenure structure entirely.
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Common Confusion
Entirety is frequently confused with joint tenancy. Both involve co-ownership without distinct fractional shares, and historical sources often discuss them together. The critical difference is that tenancy by the entirety is available only to married couples, carries the right of survivorship, and — in most jurisdictions that recognize it — cannot be severed by the unilateral act of one spouse. A joint tenant, by contrast, can convey their interest and sever the joint tenancy without the other tenant's consent. Historical dictionaries tend to explain entirety primarily through the marital unity doctrine, which is less useful for modern researchers working in jurisdictions that have reformed or abolished that doctrine.
Entirety (the noun) should also be distinguished from entire (the adjective as applied to contracts). When historical sources discuss an "entire contract" or "entire interest," they are invoking divisibility doctrine, not co-ownership law. Rapalje & Lawrence catalogues this usage pattern explicitly, listing entire contract, entire day, entire demand, and entire interest as distinct phrases requiring separate analysis.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Tenancy by the Entirety: The co-ownership estate held by spouses, characterized by unity of person, title, time, interest, and possession. Neither spouse can alienate or encumber their share independently. Upon death of one spouse, the survivor holds the whole by operation of law.
Entirety of Contract / Entire Obligation: A contract or duty that is legally indivisible, such that complete performance is a condition precedent to any right of recovery. Contrasted with a severable contract, where obligations may be apportioned.
Entirety of Interest: Used in deed construction to describe a grant of the whole interest in property, leaving no fractional interest in the grantor. See Rapalje & Lawrence (citing 13 La. Ann. 492).
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter entirety in at least two distinct bodies of law — property and contracts — and the term behaves differently in each. Failure to identify which context governs will send research in the wrong direction.
In property research, the central navigational issue is historical change. The tenancy by the entirety is a common law doctrine rooted in marital unity. Married Women's Property Acts, enacted across American jurisdictions in the nineteenth century, disrupted that doctrine in ways that varied enormously by state. Some states abolished tenancy by the entirety entirely; others preserved it while modifying the husband's common law control; others reformed it to treat spouses as equal co-owners. Historical sources — including both editions of Black's and Bouvier — reflect the pre-reform common law, where the husband had exclusive management and control of entirety property during the marriage. Researchers using those sources for modern questions must account for this gap.
In contract research, the entire/severable distinction is a recurring issue in construction contracts, employment agreements, and any multi-part performance obligation. The characterization as entire or severable is a question of law turned on the intent of the parties and the nature of the consideration. Historical sources give less systematic treatment to this usage, though Rapalje & Lawrence's index of related phrases is a useful starting point for locating period authorities.
Corpus connections: A researcher working on tenancy by the entirety will need to move quickly to creditor rights, because the primary modern significance of the estate is its potential exemption from individual creditors of one spouse. That issue is largely absent from historical dictionaries but is central to current practice. The Encyclopedia entry on Concurrent Ownership addresses this connection directly.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's agree on the core property definition: when land passes to husband and wife, they take by entireties, not by moieties. Both cite Kent's Commentaries (2 Kent, Comm. 132; 4 Kent, Comm. 362) and Blackstone (2 Bl. Comm. 188) as primary authorities. The doctrinal explanation — marital unity, no separate moiety — is consistent across sources and reflects settled pre-reform common law.
Bouvier adds the technical Latin phrase per tout et non per my (by the whole and not by the half), which is the classical formula distinguishing entirety from joint tenancy and tenancy in common. This phrase appears regularly in older deed and case law and is worth recognizing.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most practically useful of the historical sources for entirety because it indexes the term's application across different legal contexts — contracts, statutes, deeds — with case citations for each. It functions less as a definition and more as a research key. Researchers working in period materials should use it accordingly.
Burrill's entry, as reproduced here, is incomplete, but the etymological root (Law French entierte) confirms the term's early entrenchment in Anglo-Norman legal vocabulary.
What historical sources collectively miss is the post-reform landscape. They describe the doctrine as it operated under marital unity, with the husband holding exclusive control. Modern doctrine in states that retain tenancy by the entirety has largely equalized spousal rights. No historical dictionary entry accounts for this shift.
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Jurisdictional Note
Tenancy by the entirety is not recognized in all U.S. states. Roughly half the states retain it in some form; the rest have abolished it or never adopted it. Where it exists, the details — particularly regarding creditor exemptions — vary significantly. Researchers should treat historical dictionary definitions as a baseline for the common law rule and verify current statutory and case law in the relevant jurisdiction before relying on any general statement about the estate's characteristics.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Concurrent Ownership — Tenancy by the Entirety (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)
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