Definition
An archaic English land law term with two related but distinct meanings:
1. A small parcel of land, particularly as the term was used in Kent. The precise boundaries of such a parcel were loosely defined, with sources generally agreeing it denoted a limited area of ground associated with a dwelling.
2. A house or houses. Burrill's Law Dictionary grounds this meaning in Old English (hagh) and Law Latin (haga), citing medieval plea rolls from the time of Edward I and II. In this sense, haw referred not merely to the structure but to the residential unit as it appeared in early conveyancing and land records.
The two meanings are closely linked: a haw could denote the dwelling itself, the small plot immediately surrounding it, or both together as a unified holding.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To stop mid-speech with a hesitation sound ("to haw"); also used in the command "haw" to direct a draft animal to turn left.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A hedge or enclosed garden or yard; also the fruit of the hawthorn. Chaucer uses it in the sense of an enclosed domestic space.
The Webster's 1913 definition is the closest bridge between common and legal meaning. The sense of an enclosed yard or garden attached to a dwelling maps reasonably well onto the legal haw as a small plot of land near a house. The modern common meaning — hesitation in speech or a command to a draft animal — has drifted entirely away from the land-law sense and offers no useful connection.
Common Confusion
HAW vs. HAWGH: Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill both distinguish haw (a house or small parcel) from hawgh (a valley). The terms are visually and phonetically similar and appear in overlapping historical sources, including Coke on Littleton. Researchers encountering either term in old English land records or plea rolls should verify which spelling appears in the original, as the meanings are entirely unrelated.
HAW vs. HAGA: Burrill traces haw to the Law Latin haga. Researchers may encounter haga in medieval Latin records where haw appears in English-language sources; the terms refer to the same concept and can be treated as equivalents in context.
Why It Matters in Research
HAW is primarily a term of antiquarian land law with no surviving practical use in modern conveyancing or property doctrine. Its significance to Law Mind corpus researchers is almost entirely historical and documentary.
The term appears in early English land records, plea rolls from the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, and glossing traditions running through Cowell, Blount, and Coke on Littleton. Researchers working with medieval English property instruments, early plea rolls, or the Coke-Littleton commentary tradition are most likely to encounter it. It will not appear in modern statutes, case law, or standard treatises.
Jurisdictional context matters here in a narrow but real sense: the land-parcel meaning is specifically associated with Kent. A researcher finding haw in a document from another English county should consider whether the term is being used loosely or whether the house/dwelling meaning (which is not Kent-specific) is the operative one.
The divergence among sources is instructive. Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Bouvier treat haw primarily as a land parcel specific to Kent. Burrill goes further, grounding the house meaning in Saxon and Law Latin roots and citing actual plea roll manuscript sources. Rapalje & Lawrence align with Coke's usage. No source treats the term as carrying legal weight beyond descriptive identification of property in old instruments.
Researchers using Cowell or Blount directly will find haw defined consistently with Burrill's treatment. The Co. Litt. 5 citation (Coke on Littleton, section 5) is the anchor reference across multiple dictionaries and is the appropriate primary source if the term requires verification in context.
Historical Dictionary Support
All five source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: a small parcel of land or a house, with the Kent association for the land-parcel sense. The points of variation are worth noting.
Burrill provides the most substantive treatment, connecting haw etymologically to hagh and haga, citing manuscript plea roll sources (Placit. temp. Edw. I & II, MS), and distinguishing between the house meaning and the small-quantity-of-land-near-a-house meaning. This is the only source that treats the two senses as analytically separable.
Black's (both editions), Bouvier, and Rapalje & Lawrence collapse the two senses into a single short definition and rely entirely on Co. Litt. 5 as authority. Rapalje & Lawrence adds value by placing haw in sequence with related archaic terms (haward, hawberk, hawgh), which is useful for researchers navigating glossaries of early English land law vocabulary.
No source in the corpus treats haw as a term with any living legal application. All entries read as antiquarian glosses rather than working definitions, which is itself informative about the term's status by the time these dictionaries were compiled.
Jurisdictional Note
The land-parcel meaning is historically specific to Kent, England. The house/dwelling meaning appears in records not limited to Kent. Neither meaning has been carried into American law or modern English property law, making this term effectively inoperative outside historical English legal research.