Definition
A portion or fragment of a writing reproduced separately from the whole document. In legal usage, an extract is a transcribed or quoted segment taken from a larger instrument, record, or writing, and presented for some evidentiary, transactional, or official purpose.
In Scots law, the term carries a more specific and technical meaning: the certified copy, issued by a clerk of court, of the proceedings in an action together with the judgment pronounced in that action. This extract operates as an executable document — it is the instrument upon which diligence (enforcement) may proceed. In this sense it functions less like a quotation and more like a certified judgment record.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Something drawn or pulled out; a portion of a book, document, or recording incorporated distinctly in another work; also a concentrated substance derived by chemical or mechanical process (as a vanilla extract or herbal extract).
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To draw out or forth by force, traction, or chemical process; to withdraw by expression, distillation, or other means.
The ordinary meaning of extract — a portion drawn from a larger whole — tracks closely enough to the general legal meaning. The meaningful gap is the Scots law usage, where an extract is not merely a quotation from a record but a formally issued, authenticated document conferring the right to enforce a court judgment. No ordinary usage prepares a researcher for that executive function.
Common Confusion
Extract and copy are sometimes used interchangeably in older legal writing, but they are not synonymous. A copy reproduces an entire document; an extract reproduces only a part. In evidence law this distinction matters significantly: a copy of a complete public record may be admitted where only a partial extract might not be, because the extract risks omitting context that would alter meaning. Separately, extract should not be confused with estreat, which is a certified copy of a court record relating specifically to fines and recognizances forfeited to the crown — a narrower instrument with distinct procedural consequences.
Why It Matters in Research
The evidentiary rule attached to extracts is the core research trap. Bouvier states the principle clearly: an extract is generally not admissible in evidence because the remainder of the document may qualify, contradict, or explain the extracted portion. Researchers encountering an extract offered as evidence in historical cases should immediately ask whether the whole document was produced, whether an exception applied (public registers being the primary one), and whether the adverse party demanded the whole. This rule of completeness has modern analogues in rules of evidence governing partial writings.
For researchers working with Scottish legal materials or historical British sources, the Scots law meaning of extract is functionally decisive. An extract in Scots procedure is not a fragment — it is the operative enforcement instrument. Confusing the two meanings when reading across British and American sources in the Law Mind corpus will produce misreadings of what documents were produced and for what purpose.
Public register extracts occupy a recognized exception. Extracts from registers of births, marriages, and burials kept pursuant to law were admitted in evidence, provided that the entirety of the relevant entry was extracted. This exception is the ancestor of modern certified copy provisions for vital records and public documents. Researchers tracing the evidentiary treatment of civil registration records should follow the extract exception as the doctrinal thread.
The cross-reference Anderson provides — to COPY, ESTREAT, EVIDENCE (Secondary), and REVIEW — outlines the constellation of related doctrines a researcher must triangulate. Secondary evidence doctrine governed when and whether an extract could substitute for original production.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are consistent on the basic definition: a portion of a writing. Bouvier provides the most analytically useful entry, articulating both the general exclusionary rule and the public register exception with the qualifying condition that all relevant matter must be extracted. Black's is the only source to give meaningful treatment to the Scots law meaning and the associated concept of extracta curiae (the issues or profits of a court arising from customary fees) — a related but distinct concept that researchers should not conflate with the certified copy meaning. Rapalje & Lawrence begins the evidentiary analysis but the entry is truncated in available text. Burrill similarly addresses the Scots law meaning. None of the historical sources adequately address the modern rule of completeness as a statutory or codified analog, which is where contemporary research must ultimately land.
Jurisdictional Note
The Scots law meaning of extract as a certified, executable court record has no direct American equivalent in terminology, though functionally comparable instruments exist (certified judgments, abstracts of judgment). Researchers working in comparative British-American legal history should treat the term as jurisdiction-sensitive. In American sources, extract almost always means only a partial quotation from a document, with evidentiary weight governed by completeness doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Evidence — Secondary Evidence and Best Evidence Rule; Public Records and Certified Copies; Scots Law — Diligence and Enforcement of Judgments.