Definition
In criminal law, "haul away" appears in indictments for larceny as a substitute for the statutory phrase "carry away." The term signifies the physical removal of stolen property from its original location — the asportation element of larceny. Courts have held that "haul" and "carry" are sufficiently equivalent in meaning that an indictment using "haul away" in place of the statutory "carry away" is not fatally defective.
The term carries no independent legal definition beyond this narrow pleading context. Its legal significance is almost entirely confined to the question of whether variance from statutory language in a larceny indictment constitutes a fatal defect.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To transport by drawing or pulling, as with horses, oxen, or a motor vehicle; to drag or pull something heavy; to carry or transport something with a connotation of weight or difficulty.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To pull or draw with force; to drag; to transport by drawing, as with horses or oxen.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but specific. In ordinary English, "haul" emphasizes the physical effort of moving something heavy. In the legal context, the word does no more than satisfy the asportation requirement — the fact of removal — without regard to the mode or difficulty of transport. Courts did not care how the property was moved; they cared only that the indictment adequately alleged that it was moved.
Common Confusion
"Haul away" should not be confused with the asportation element itself. The word is merely a pleading vehicle for alleging asportation; it does not define or expand the element. Researchers encountering debates about whether minimal movement satisfies asportation should look to cases and treatises treating "carry away" directly — "haul" adds nothing to that doctrinal analysis.
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in historical sources dealing with larceny indictment pleading, particularly in American jurisdictions of the nineteenth century where statutory forms were strictly policed. Researchers working with old indictments or case law challenging technical pleading defects will encounter "haul away" as a variant phrase and need to know it was treated as equivalent to "carry away" — not as a distinct legal standard.
The sole case anchoring this entry — Spittorff v. State, 108 Ind. 171, 8 N.E. 911 (1886) — is the authority cited across all four historical dictionaries. Researchers should treat this as a narrow Indiana holding that was absorbed into general pleading guidance, not as a widely litigated question with deep doctrinal development.
The practical trap: a researcher working through a set of historical larceny indictments may flag "haul away" as anomalous or defective language. It is not. The historical dictionaries uniformly confirm the equivalence.
This term has no modern statutory resonance. Contemporary criminal codes do not use "haul" as a term of art, and the asportation requirement has its own well-developed body of law entirely independent of this pleading question.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries converge on the same narrow point: "haul" is an acceptable substitute for "carry" in a larceny indictment because the words are equivalent in the relevant sense. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's each cite Spittorff v. State directly. Anderson's dispatches the term with a cross-reference to "CARRY," signaling that the entry has no independent doctrinal weight.
Bouvier's appends a note on "HAULM, or HELM" (meaning straw or stubble) immediately after the haul entry — a reminder that nineteenth-century dictionaries treated adjacent terms as neighbors regardless of subject matter, and that researchers should not read any connection between these entries.
None of the historical dictionaries treat "haul" as a term of art with independent meaning. The consistent treatment across sources confirms this is a one-case, one-point entry: variance in pleading language does not doom an indictment when the words are functionally equivalent.