Definition
HAT has no established legal meaning as a standalone term of art. In legal contexts, the word appears only in its ordinary sense — a head covering — or as part of compound terms and phrases (such as "hat money," a historical maritime fee). Burrill's source material indexed under this term redirects to PORT and PORTUS, suggesting that the dictionary reference is incidental rather than substantive.
Researchers encountering "hat" in historical legal documents should treat it as ordinary language unless context indicates a specialized trade, maritime, or sumptuary usage.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A covering for the head, often conical, domed, or cylindrical and closed at the top, sometimes with a brim. Figuratively, a role or capacity a person fills ("wearing two hats"). Also, any receptacle used in a lottery draw.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The entry for HAT is absent from Webster's 1913 in the supplied material; the adjacent entry is HOT, marked as obsolete in Chaucer. This gap in the historical record is itself informative — HAT was sufficiently ordinary that it required no definition.
The figurative sense — a role or capacity — occasionally appears in legal writing and judicial opinions informally ("acting in his hat as trustee"), but this is rhetorical usage, not a term of art. No distinct legal meaning attaches.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to two practical issues.
First, indexing artifacts: Burrill's entry for HAT appears to be a cross-reference fragment rather than a substantive definition, pointing toward PORT and PORTUS in the context of cargo reception and delivery. If you arrived here following a Burrill citation trail, the correct destination is the PORT/PORTUS entry, not this one.
Second, hat money: Historical maritime and admiralty sources use the phrase "hat money" (sometimes spelled "hat-money") to describe a customary gratuity or small fee paid to a ship's captain or master upon delivery of cargo — distinct from freight charges and primage. This term is occasionally encountered in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century admiralty pleadings, charter parties, and bills of lading. If your research involves historical shipping documents and the word "hat" appears in a financial context, "hat money" is the likely referent. Follow the PRIMAGE and PORT entries for the broader fee structure.
Third, sumptuary law: Pre-modern English and colonial American statutes regulated hat-wearing by rank and occupation. References to hats in early statutory material may be sumptuary in nature — regulating who could wear what — rather than contractual or tortious.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides no substantive definition. The fragment indexed under HAT — concerning reception and delivery of cargoes and the chamberlain of the bishop of Ely — is plainly misattributed or represents a truncated cross-reference to PORT. Burrill otherwise does not treat HAT as a legal term requiring definition, which is consistent with its status as ordinary vocabulary.
No other historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus (Bouvier, Black, Jacob, Tomlin) assign HAT a distinct legal meaning. The absence is meaningful: legal lexicographers reserved entries for terms carrying specialized legal weight. HAT carried none.