Definition
Capable of being demanded, required, or exacted as a matter of right. Applied most commonly to obligations, debts, or duties that are presently due and enforceable — that is, obligations that a creditor or obligee may lawfully call in or compel performance of at the current moment. A debt becomes exigible when its term has matured and no legal impediment bars collection. The term also appears in procedural contexts to describe what may be required of a party by operation of law or court process.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "That may be exacted; demandable; requirable."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "That may be exacted; repairable."
The common and legal meanings are unusually close here, but the legal sense carries a specific temporal and enforceable dimension that the ordinary definition underplays. In legal usage, exigible is not merely about what could theoretically be demanded — it signals that the right to demand is presently ripe and legally actionable, not contingent or deferred.
Common Confusion
Exigible and exigent are distinct terms that share a Latin root and are frequently confused in research. Exigible describes a right or obligation that is demandable — it characterizes the status of a debt or duty. Exigent describes circumstances that are urgent or pressing — most prominently in Fourth Amendment doctrine, where exigent circumstances may justify warrantless police action. A debt may be exigible without any exigency being present; a search may occur under exigent circumstances with no exigible obligation in view. Finding one term when you intended the other in a historical source is a real research hazard.
Why It Matters in Research
Exigible is a term of art primarily in contract, debt, and civil obligation contexts, and it appears with some regularity in older treatises, equity pleadings, and commercial law materials. Researchers working with historical sources — particularly pre-twentieth-century contract or debt collection materials — will encounter it where modern sources would simply say "due and payable" or "presently enforceable."
The term is rare in contemporary American legal writing, which means a researcher looking for modern doctrine will need to translate: exigible obligations correspond broadly to matured, presently enforceable duties in current legal vocabulary. When searching the Law Mind corpus, be alert to the fact that historical treatises on negotiable instruments, suretyship, and mortgage law use exigible to describe the moment at which a creditor's right of action accrues.
Do not confuse exigible search results with entries on exigent circumstances — a high-volume constitutional search and seizure doctrine. The two terms will appear in entirely different bodies of law, and cross-contamination in keyword searches is likely given the shared root. Filter accordingly.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three historical dictionaries consulted are in full agreement and uniformly brief: Black's (both editions) gives "demandable; requirable," and Bouvier adds the slight elaboration "that which may be exacted." The convergence suggests the term was well-settled in the period these dictionaries reflect and did not generate doctrinal dispute.
What the historical sources do not provide is context for when an obligation becomes exigible — that is, the triggering conditions. That analysis lives in the substantive law of each obligation type (contract, debt, bond, surety) rather than in the dictionary definition itself. Researchers should treat the historical entries as definitional anchors and look to contemporary treatises for the doctrine governing maturity and enforceability conditions.
Webster's 1913 entry notes the term was marked rare even then, suggesting it was already receding from general usage by the turn of the twentieth century. Its persistence in legal dictionaries past that point reflects the conservatism of legal vocabulary more than active deployment in practice.
Jurisdictional Note
Exigible carries no jurisdiction-specific legal meaning in American law — it is a general term of obligation that operates consistently across common law jurisdictions. Civil law systems use cognate terms in similar senses, so researchers working in Louisiana materials or comparative law contexts will find the term familiar and stable.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The term exigible itself does not have a dedicated encyclopedia entry, but researchers who arrive here via a confusion with exigent should consult:
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Warrantless Searches — Exigent Circumstances (criminal_152)
The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia: Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement — Search Incident to Arrest, Exigent Circumstances, Automobile (constitutional_117)
These entries address the separate exigent circumstances doctrine in Fourth Amendment law and are not directly related to the meaning of exigible as a term of civil obligation.