GREAT

8 definitions found across Law Mind sources

GREATAuthored
The Law Mind • 1003 words
Definition
As a standalone legal term, "great" carries little independent legal significance. Its importance in legal research lies almost entirely in its function as a qualifying modifier in compound legal terms and phrases, where it consistently signals something elevated beyond the ordinary — in scale, dignity, importance, or legal consequence. Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) captures this directly: as used in compound legal terms, "great" generally means "extraordinary, that is, exceeding the common or ordinary measure or standard, in respect to physical size, or importance, dignity, etc." The most legally significant compounds include: 1. GREAT CARE: A standard of attention exceeding ordinary care; sometimes contrasted with "slight care" and "ordinary care" in negligence analysis. The degree of care required of persons handling dangerous instrumentalities or acting as bailees for hire. 2. GREAT WRIT: Common designation for habeas corpus, the foundational writ for challenging unlawful detention. The modifier "great" reflects both its constitutional stature and its historical importance as a check on executive and judicial power. 3. GREAT CHARTER: Magna Charta (Magna Carta). The use of "great" here denotes primacy among charters, not merely physical length, though the document was also unusually long. 4. GREAT CATTLE: At common law, all manner of beasts except sheep and yearlings. The distinction between great and small cattle had practical significance in property, trespass, and agricultural law. 5. GREAT SEAL: The official seal of a sovereign, state, or nation used to authenticate the most solemn instruments of government. Distinguished from lesser or privy seals. 6. GREAT POND: In some American jurisdictions (particularly New England), a body of water exceeding a statutory minimum acreage and subject to public rights. Distinguished from private ponds.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In ordinary modern English, "great" functions primarily as an intensifier meaning large, important, or excellent. As a noun, it refers to a person of major significance or accomplishment. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Large in space; of much size; big; immense; enormous; expanded." Also: "Superior; admirable; commanding — applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings." The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but directional. In law, "great" rarely means merely "large" — it nearly always signals a formal elevation in legal category, standard, or constitutional status. A researcher encountering "great" in a legal compound should ask not "how big?" but "what threshold or status is being invoked?"
Common Confusion
The most consequential confusion for researchers is between "great care" and "ordinary care" in negligence doctrine. These are distinct legal standards with different burdens, yet historical sources sometimes use "great care" loosely to mean simply "a lot of care." The formal tripartite structure (slight/ordinary/great care) was more systematically used in 19th-century American common law and appears prominently in bailment and carrier cases; modern American negligence doctrine has largely collapsed toward a single "reasonable care" standard, making historical sources using "great care" as a term of art potentially misleading when applied to modern practice.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will rarely look up "great" as a primary term, but recognizing its function as a legal intensifier with formal consequences is essential when parsing compound terms across historical sources. Several navigational points: First, historical sources use "great" in compounds that have since been renamed or absorbed. "Great writ" for habeas corpus is still current, but other "great" formulations (great distress, great pond, great cattle) appear in older property and common law materials and may not survive into modern treatises. A researcher encountering these terms in 18th or 19th-century sources should treat them as terms of art, not mere description. Second, the care standard problem is a genuine research trap. Cases from roughly 1820–1900 that articulate "great care" as a bailment or carrier standard are applying a formal three-tier negligence taxonomy. Citing those cases in a modern negligence context without accounting for doctrinal consolidation will produce anachronistic analysis. Third, "great pond" doctrine is a live jurisdictional issue in New England states, particularly Massachusetts and Maine, where the distinction between great and small ponds has statutory and constitutional dimensions affecting public access and riparian rights. The term appears in colonial-era grants and has been continuously litigated. Fourth, "Great Seal" appears in authentication statutes, international law instruments, and constitutional provisions. Its presence in a document signals a particular level of governmental formality with legal consequences for validity and admissibility.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) provides the clearest functional definition: "great" in compound legal terms means "extraordinary" — exceeding the ordinary measure in physical size, importance, or dignity. This is the most useful synthesis available in the historical shelf sources. Rapalje & Lawrence and Anderson's Dictionary of Law do not appear to have carried independent entries for "great" as such; the retrieval reflects material on "grant," suggesting the shelf sources treated "great" primarily through its compound terms rather than as a headword. This is itself instructive: historical legal dictionaries largely declined to define "great" in isolation, treating its meaning as self-evident in context. What the historical sources miss collectively is any systematic treatment of "great care" as a graduated negligence standard, despite its frequency in 19th-century case law. Researchers relying solely on dictionary definitions will undercount the doctrinal importance of the term in that period.
Jurisdictional Note
"Great pond" doctrine carries live jurisdictional significance in Massachusetts and Maine, where colonial-era statutes defining great ponds (historically, bodies of water over ten acres) created public rights that persist in modern law. The term has no comparable legal meaning in most other American jurisdictions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Habeas Corpus — The Great Writ and Suspension Clause (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia)
Related Terms
Habeas Corpus | Great Writ | Magna Carta | Great Seal | Great Care | Ordinary Care | Slight Care | Great Pond | Great Cattle | Extraordinary | Negligence | Bailment | Care (degrees of)
GREATmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
astical law.
GREATmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888
(579) GRANT, (treaty of cession is). 9 Pet. (U. S.) 711. (what will pass under). 43 Cal. 502. (what words in a deed will operate as). 5 T. R. 124. (in a deed). 5 Co. 16, 17; Freem. 414; 2 Saund. 97; 1 Ves. Sr. 101; 3 Wils. 25, 28. (in a lease). 5 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 421, 424; 5 Barn. & Ald. 322, 326. (in a will). 3 Atk. 731, 735. (in treaty between United States and Spain). 8 Pet. (U. S.) 436, 450; 12 Id. 410. GRANT AND CONVEY, (implies a warranty). 2 Atk. 228. GRANT AND DEMISE, (are words of implied covenant). 2 Bouv. Inst. 402; Amb. 247, 250; Cro. Jac. 73. (in a lease). 8 Cow. (N. Y.) 36; 7 Johns. (N. Y.) 259 n.; 4 Wend. (N. Y.) 502. GRANT AND ENFEOFF, (in a deed). 16 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 98. GRANT AND MAKE OVER, (in a deed). 3 Johns. (N. Y.) 484. GRANT AND RELEASE, (in a deed). 3 Mod. 296, 301. GRANT, BARGAIN, AND SELL. -Operative words in conveyances of real estate. See BARGAIN AND SALE, 2. GRANT, BARGAIN, AND SELL, (as having force of general warranty). 4 Dall. (U. S.) 440. Wheel. Am. C. L. 52. (do not imply a warranty of title). 4 (in an agreement). 1 Yeates (Pa.) 398; 4 Yeates (Pa.) 295. (in a deed). 21 III. 220; 32 Id. 348; 6 Pick. (Mass.) 499; 34 Mo. 390; 60 Id. 138; 1 Murph. (N. C.) 343; 4 Oreg. 235; 2 Binn. (Pa.) 95; 3 Pa. 313; 1 Rawle (Pa.) 377; 11 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 109; 2 Bouv. Inst. 401; 3 Wheel. Am. C. L. 382. (in a statute). 2 Ala. 535; 5 Id. 586; 12 Id. 159; 19 III. 235. GRANT, BARGAIN, SELL, ALIEN, AND CONFIRM, (in a deed). 2 Cai. (N. Y.) 188, 195. GRANT, BARGAIN, SELL, AND CONVEY, (in a deed). 25 Cal. 175. GRANT, COVENANT, AND AGREE, (sufficient to make a lease for years). Cro. Jac. 91. GRANT, OR DEMISE, (in a lease). 1 Chit. Gen. Pr. 344. GRANT, PAROL, (of land). 3 Watts (Pa.) 37. GRANT TO USES.-The common grant with uses superadded, which has become the favorite mode of transferring realty in England. Wharton. GRANTED AND DEMISED, (in a lease). 9 Ves. 330. GRANTED AND TO FREIGHT LET, (in a char- 'er party). 2 Brod. & B. 410, 428. GRANTED, BARGAINED, AND SOLD, (in an agreement). 1 Halst. (N. J.) 222.
GREATmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
grant be informal, or if he grants an estate contrary to the rules of law, - the grant is absolutely void.1 By a grant everything passes which is necessary to the full enjoyment of the right, title, or estate which is included in the words. A grant of a mere way carries an easement only -- the ownership of the soil not being essential to the free use of the right. But a grant of an estate designated only by the particular use for which the land is appropriated will pass the fee; as, a grant of "a house," "a wharf," "a mill," "a well," "a barn," and the like.2 With respect to "public grants," the rule is, that rights, privileges, and immunities not expressly granted are reserved. Nothing can be presumed against the State. There would be no safety to public interests in any other rule. The rule applies with special force where the claim would abridge or restrain a power of government, as, the power of taxation.3 Where a statute operates as a grant of public property to an individual, or the relinquishment of a public interest, and there is a doubt as to the meaning of its terms, or as to its general purpose, that construction should be adopted which will support the claim of the government rather than that of the individual. Nothing can be inferred against the State. Such acts are usually drawn by interested parties; and they are presumed to claim all they are entitled to. The rule serves to defeat any purpose concealed by the skillful use of terms, to accomplish something not apparent upon the face of the act, and thus sanctions only open dealing with legislative bodies. A more liberal rule of construction is allowable in interpreting a grant from one State or political community to another, than is permitted in interpreting a private grant. Where power or jurisdiction is delegated to any public officer or tribunal, and its exercise is confided to his or their discretion, acts done are binding as to the subject-matter; and individual rights will not be disturbed collaterally for anything so done. The only questions which can arise between an individual claiming a right under the acts and the public, or a person denying its validity, are power in the officer and fraud 12 Bl. Com. 346-48, 121, 380. 2 Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation v. Chandler, 9 Allen, 164 (1864), Bigelow, C. J.; Johnson v. Rayner, 6 Gray, 110 (1856), cases; United States v. Appleton, 1 Sumn. 500 (1833); Bank of British North America v. Miller, 7 Saw. 163 (1881), cases; Green Bay, &c. Canal Co. v. Hewitt, 66 Wis. 464-65 (1886): Lowell v. Strahan, 145 Mass. 1, 11 (1887), cases; 26 Am. Law Reg. 722-26 (1887), cases; 19 Cent. Law J. 446 (1884)-Solic. Journ. 3 The Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 225 (1873), Field, J. See also Schulenberg v. Harriman, 21 id. 62 (1874); Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold, &c. Co., 93 U. S. 638 (1876); Wiggins Ferry Co. v. East St. Louis, 107 id. 371 (1882), cases; Ruggles v. Illinois, 108 id. 531 (1883), cases Hannibal, &c. R. Co. v. Missouri River Packet Co., 125 id. 271 (1588), cases; Swann v. Jenkins, 82 Ala. 482 (1886); Omaha Horse R. Co. v. Cable Co., 30 F. R. 828 (1887), cases. Limitation on legislative grants, 26 Am. Law Reg. 65-71 (1887), cases. • Slidell v. Grandjean, 111 U. S. 437 (1884), Field, J. Indiana v. Milk, 11 Biss. 205 (1882), Gresham, J. in the party. All other questions are settled by the decision made by the tribunal or officer, whether exесutive, legislative, judicial, or special, unless an appeal is provided for, or other revision, by some appellate or supervisory tribunal, is prescribed. In no case have documents of title, executed by officers of the government, been held sufficient where the fact in issue was whether the government had any title to convey, to establish the fact in dispute, as against parties claiming a pre-existing, adverse, and paramount title themselves.¹ No one can grant what he does not own." See DARE, Nemo, etc. See CHARTER, 2; CONDITION; DEED, 2; DELIVERY; DISCLAIMER, 2; DISPARAGEMENT, 2; INCIDENT; LAND, Public; PATENT 1 (1), 2. 4. To confer, bestow, allow, permit, award, issue: as, to grant a rule to show cause, letters testamentary or of administration, a writ of certiorari, habeas corpus, or mandamus. See CARE; CHARTER, 1; SEAL, 1. Compare GRAND; GROSS; MAGNUS. Greater. Larger; superior; chief; principal. The greater includes the less. The greater power of making wholly new legislation includes the lesser power of altering old legislation.4 The withdrawal or extinguishment of the greater carries the less; thus, the withdrawal or extinguishment of a franchise authorizes the withdrawal or extinguishment of every right which is a part of the franchise.5 1 Sabariego v. Maverick, 124 U. S. 280 (1888), cases, Matthews, J., quoting United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. *727 (1832), cases. 223 How. 175; 1 Wall. 254; 11 id. 459; 94 U. S. 382; 95 id. 10; 34 La. An. 791. See 1 Greenl. Ev. § 66. ▲ Exp. Siebold, 100 U. S. 384 (1879). 5 Atlantic & Gulf R. Co. v. Georgia, 98 U. S. 365 (1878); 54 Ga. 401; Branch v. Jesup, 106 U. S. 478 (1882); 21 Wall. 175; 111 U. S. 270.
GREATa.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
Large in space; of much size; big; immense; enormous; expanded; -- opposed to small and little; as, a great house, ship, farm, plain, distance, length. Large in number; numerous; as, a great company, multitude, series, etc. Long continued; lengthened in duration; prolonged in time; as, a great while; a great interval. Superior; admirable; commanding; -- applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings. Endowed with extraordinary powers; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; strong; powerful; mighty; noble; as, a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, etc. Holding a chief position; elevated: lofty: eminent; distingushed; formost; principal; as, great men; the great seal; the great marshal, etc. He doth object I am too great of birth. Shak. Entitled to earnest consideration; weighty; important; as, a great argument, truth, or principle. Pregnant; big (with young). The ewes great with young. Ps. lxxviii. 71. More than ordinary in degree; very considerable in degree; as, to use great caution; to be in great pain. We have all Great cause to give great thanks. Shak.
GREATn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
The whole.; the gross; as, a contract to build a ship by the great.
greatnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim. | The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division. | An instance of the word "great" signifying an additional generation in phrases expressing family relationships.
greatadj
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Taking much space; large. | Taking much space; large. | Much, more than usual. | Taking much space; large. | Intensifying a word or expression, used in mild oaths. | Very good; excellent; wonderful; fantastic. | Important, consequential. | Involving more generations than the qualified word implies — as many extra generations as repetitions of the word great (from 1510s). | Pregnant; large with young; full of. | Intimate; familiar. | Arising from or possessing idealism; admirable; commanding; illustrious; eminent. | Impressive or striking. | Much in use; favoured. | Of much talent or achievements. | Doing or exemplifying (a characteristic or pursuit) on a large scale; active or enthusiastic.

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