Definition
A Latin term meaning "shall be" or "it will be," derived from the future tense of the Latin verb *esse* (to be). In legal instruments and judicial texts rooted in the civil law tradition, *erit* functions as a future-tense auxiliary, typically signifying that some legal condition, status, or obligation will exist or come into effect. Notably, in certain civil law contexts, the term was interpreted to carry a past-tense meaning — a counterintuitive usage that required careful attention when reading classical Roman legal texts.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): *Erit* is the third-person singular future active indicative of the Latin verb *esse*, meaning "he/she/it will be." It appears in general Latin texts across literary, ecclesiastical, and academic contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; would be understood by any reader of classical Latin as a standard future-tense form of *esse*.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but consequential: while any Latin reader would take *erit* straightforwardly as a future-tense verb, the civil law tradition occasionally treated it as equivalent to a past-tense expression depending on the interpretive context of the passage. A researcher reading Roman legal sources cannot assume the grammatically obvious meaning controls.
Common Confusion
The civil law treatment of *erit* as sometimes denoting the past tense is genuinely counterintuitive and easy to misread. Researchers unfamiliar with classical Roman jurisprudential interpretation may translate *erit* mechanically as "shall be" and reach an incorrect understanding of the legal rule in question. The passage cited in Burrill — Digest 50.16.123 — reflects the Roman jurists' tendency to interpret temporal language contextually rather than grammatically, a habit that runs throughout the *Corpus Juris Civilis* and can catch modern readers off guard.
Why It Matters in Research
*Erit* is a term of limited but specific relevance to researchers working in the civil law tradition, particularly those reading the Digest of Justinian or other classical Roman legal texts in their original Latin. Its importance lies almost entirely in the interpretive anomaly flagged by Burrill: the word's grammatical future meaning does not always correspond to its legal meaning in context.
Researchers should be aware of two practical issues:
First, when *erit* appears in a civil law text governing succession, contracts, or status, do not assume the future-tense reading is dispositive. The surrounding interpretive context may require reading the term as denoting a past or present state of affairs, consistent with the approach evidenced in Digest 50.16.123.
Second, this term rarely surfaces in common law sources. Its appearance in legal research is almost always a signal that the underlying document or authority has civil law or mixed-jurisdiction roots — Louisiana, Quebec, South Africa, or historical European sources being the most likely contexts in an Anglo-American corpus. If *erit* appears in what purports to be a common law instrument, that itself warrants scrutiny.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only treatment of *erit* in the Law Mind shelf sources, and its entry is characteristically compressed but precise. Burrill identifies both the standard future meaning ("shall be") and the anomalous civil law usage in which the term was "sometimes understood as denoting the past tense," citing Digest 50.16.123 as authority.
This single-source situation is expected for a term of this nature — *erit* is a grammatical particle that only becomes a term of legal art in narrow civil law interpretive contexts. Historical legal dictionaries not grounded in the civilian tradition would have no occasion to address it. Black's Law Dictionary, for example, does not carry a separate entry for *erit*. Burrill's civilian awareness makes his treatment reliable here, though sparse. Researchers requiring fuller treatment should consult the Digest directly, along with civilian commentators on Book 50, Title 16 — the *de verborum significatione* title, which is specifically concerned with the interpretation of legal terms and language.
Jurisdictional Note
Relevant primarily in civil law jurisdictions and in historical research touching Roman law sources. In mixed jurisdictions such as Louisiana and Quebec, civilian interpretive principles — including flexible readings of temporal terms like *erit* — may be preserved in court practice and academic commentary where they would be absent in purely common law systems.