Definition
HOP is not an independent legal term of art. In historical legal sources, particularly Burrill's Law Dictionary, the entry fragment associated with "hop" appears as a truncated or misattributed remnant of material belonging to the entry for HOMOLOGATION — the civil law doctrine by which a person ratifies or confirms a defective deed, rendering it binding upon them. The fragment references Louisiana Civil Code articles and Scots law authority (Bell's Dictionary), both of which treat homologation as a form of confirmation of a voidable deed.
No independent legal definition for "HOP" exists in the primary or historical legal dictionary corpus. Researchers encountering "hop" in a legal source should treat it as either a typographical artifact, a running-head fragment, or an indexing error pointing to homologation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A synonym for "half-op," a partial operator status in internet relay chat (IRC) contexts; also the ordinary verb meaning to leap or jump on one foot.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To move by successive leaps, as toads do; to spring or jump on one foot; to skip, as birds do; also, to walk lame or to limp.
Neither the modern nor historical common meaning of "hop" has any legal counterpart. The appearance of "HOP" as a legal dictionary headword is a source artifact, not a genuine legal term. Researchers should not infer legal meaning from the common word.
Common Confusion
HOP vs. HOMOLOGATION: The Burrill entry fragment indexed under or near "HOP" belongs substantively to HOMOLOGATION. The confusion arises from how historical dictionaries were typeset and indexed — running headers, partial columns, and alphabetical spillover sometimes detached definition text from its proper headword. Any legal content a researcher finds under "HOP" in Burrill should be read as part of the HOMOLOGATION entry, which covers the ratification of defective deeds in civil law and Scots law systems.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Law Mind's historical dictionary corpus should treat "HOP" as a navigational dead-end unless they are specifically tracing source-artifact issues in Burrill's Law Dictionary. The substantive doctrine referenced in the fragment — confirmation of a voidable deed, Louisiana Civil Code articles 1296, 1297, 1299, and 3096, and Scots law homologation via Bell's Dictionary — all properly belong to the HOMOLOGATION entry and should be researched there.
This kind of headword fragmentation is a known hazard in 19th-century legal dictionaries. Burrill's was compiled and typeset under conditions that occasionally produced orphaned definition fragments, truncated entries, or headwords that appear to begin a new entry but are in fact continuations of a prior one. When a corpus search surfaces a seemingly nonsensical legal headword, the researcher's first move should be to examine the immediately preceding and following entries to locate the parent term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical source here, and its "HOP" entry is almost certainly a fragment artifact. The text — referencing homologation, Louisiana Civil Code articles, and Bell's Scottish Law Dictionary — is coherent only as part of the HOMOLOGATION entry. Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland defines homologation as an act approving a deed that would otherwise be defective, giving it binding force on the approving party. The Louisiana Civil Code articles cited govern partition and related civil law confirmation doctrines. No other major historical legal dictionary — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — carries an independent entry for "HOP" as a legal term.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: HOMOLOGATION