Definition
A Latin-derived term from the civil law tradition meaning to confirm, approve, assent to, or ratify a legal act or judgment. Courts and legal authorities employing homologare lend formal sanction to an act — such as the ruling of an arbitrator, a settlement of succession, or an agreement between parties — for the purpose of making it more binding and enforceable. The term also carries the sense of confession or concession: to homologate is, in certain civil law contexts, to acknowledge the validity of an opposing party's position or a prior proceeding.
In the Louisiana civil law tradition specifically, homologation refers to the judicial approval given to acts and agreements that require court confirmation to become fully operative and executory — including the approval of arbitration awards, appointments of syndics or assignees in insolvency proceedings, and accounts rendered in successions.
Common Confusion
Homologare (the Latin verb) and homologation (the noun form in practice) are sometimes treated as interchangeable in legal texts. They are conceptually the same but contextually distinct: homologare appears as a term of art in civil law treatises and Latin-inflected legal writing, while homologation is the procedural event that occurs when a court actually exercises that confirmatory power. Researchers may also encounter the variant spelling emologare in older sources — Burrill's notes this as a corruption of the original term, not a distinct legal concept.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is largely dormant in common law jurisdictions and will not appear in standard American or English case law outside of Louisiana, Quebec, and other civil law-influenced systems. Researchers working in Louisiana law will encounter homologation as a live procedural concept — particularly in successions, arbitration, and insolvency. In that context, homologation is the mechanism by which a court transforms a private arrangement or an arbitrator's award into a judicially enforceable judgment.
In historical legal research, homologare appears in civil law treatises and Scots law sources with some frequency, as Scotland maintained civil law influence well into the modern period. Researchers using 18th- and 19th-century legal dictionaries should be alert to the term appearing in discussions of arbitration, succession administration, and creditor proceedings — categories that in common law jurisdictions were handled through different procedural machinery entirely.
The Burrill's entry is worth special attention: the relevant definition is partially obscured by a typesetting artifact in the digitized source, with unrelated text (relating to socmannus and homo casatus) embedded mid-entry. Researchers relying on that source should treat the interpolated passages as editorial noise, not as substantive legal content connected to homologare.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: to confirm, approve, consent to, or confess. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) track each other closely, drawing on Calvin's Lexicon Iuridicum for the definition. Burrill's traces the term to the Greek ὁμολογεῖν (to consent, assent, confess), grounding the civil law usage in its classical root.
Black's 1st edition adds the most contextually useful material, citing Escriche's legal dictionary for the practical applications: the ten-day period for complaining of arbitral sentences, the approval of syndic appointments in insolvency, and the confirmation of succession settlements. This contextual information does not appear in the 2nd edition's entry, which collapses to a bare definition — a step backward in research utility. Researchers seeking the procedural texture of the term should prefer the 1st edition entry and Escriche as a follow-on source.
No historical source addresses the term's application in Scots law directly, despite its documented use there. That is a gap in the shelf sources that researchers working in Scottish legal history should compensate for by consulting institutional writers such as Stair or Erskine.
Jurisdictional Note
Homologare and its derivative homologation remain operative legal concepts in Louisiana, where the civil law tradition is preserved. Quebec law uses the same concept under the French term homologation. In common law jurisdictions, the concept has no direct procedural equivalent — confirmation of arbitration awards and approval of insolvency arrangements are handled by statutory mechanisms without the same terminology.