Definition
To "go without day" means to be finally dismissed from court without any date fixed for a future appearance. When a party goes without day, the proceedings against them are at an end — no further hearing is scheduled, no return date remains, and the matter is concluded as to that party. The phrase signals a terminal disposition of a case or a party's involvement in it, as opposed to a continuance or adjournment, which would fix a definite day for the matter to resume.
The phrase is archaic and rarely appears in modern American or English court filings, but it surfaces regularly in historical pleading records, older reported opinions, and documents from courts of equity and common law through the nineteenth century.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No standard entry. The phrase is not in general civilian use.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. The phrase was legal terminology even in the nineteenth century and did not cross into common parlance.
Editorial note: Because the phrase has no meaningful civilian counterpart, confusion arises not from a gap between legal and common meaning but from unfamiliarity — researchers encountering it in historical records may not recognize it as a term of art signaling final dismissal rather than mere postponement.
Common Confusion
"Go without day" is sometimes misread as indicating a continuance or a postponement without a fixed date — the opposite of its actual meaning. A continuance holds a case open; going without day closes it. Similarly, the phrase should not be confused with a nonsuit, which was a specific procedural mechanism by which a plaintiff abandoned or was thrown out of court at trial. A party may go without day following a nonsuit, a successful plea in abatement, a discontinuance, or a final judgment — the phrase describes the consequence (no future appearance required) rather than the procedural route that produced it.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century American and English court records, equity proceedings, or pleading treatises will encounter this phrase in orders, judgments, and docket entries where a modern court would simply write "dismissed" or "judgment for defendant." Recognizing it as a terminal disposition marker is essential to reading these documents accurately.
The phrase also appears in the formulaic closing language of many common law judgments, particularly in writs of entry, real actions, and early equity decrees. In that context it confirms finality and signals that the record of the case is complete — an important marker when tracing title chains or reconstructing litigation histories from historical sources.
Because the term appears in entries immediately adjacent to unrelated terms in the historical dictionaries (Black's transitions directly to "goat/gote," as does Bouvier's), researchers using digitized versions of those dictionaries should be alert to OCR or indexing errors that may truncate the entry or run it together with the following headword.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is unhelpfully brief, directing the reader to "eat inde" without independent explanation — researchers using that dictionary should follow the cross-reference rather than treating the go without day entry as self-contained.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary give essentially identical definitions: a party goes without day because no day is appointed for future appearance. Bouvier adds a second stated reason — that the suit is discontinued — which is a useful supplement. Both sources treat the phrase as descriptive of a consequence rather than as an independent procedural motion or order, which is consistent with its use in historical records.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds nothing substantive, cross-referencing only. None of the three historical sources explain the range of procedural contexts that could produce the result (nonsuit, successful defense, discontinuance, final judgment), which is the most practically important information for a researcher trying to understand what actually happened in a historical case when this phrase appears.
All three sources agree on the core meaning. No significant divergence exists among them. The historical dictionaries do not address how the phrase interacts with res judicata or finality doctrine, which would require consultation of pleading treatises such as those of Chitty or Stephen for fuller context.