Definition
A Latin adverb used in old pleading to mean "hitherto" or "up to this point." It functioned as a formal marker indicating that the preceding portion of a pleading had been read or recited, and that what followed was either a continuation or a new section. The term appears in early English common law pleading practice and is now entirely obsolete in modern legal drafting.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not entered as an English word; recognized only as a Latin adverb meaning "up to here" or "thus far."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered; treated as purely Latin.
The term has no meaningful life in ordinary English. It belongs exclusively to the formal Latin vocabulary of medieval and early modern pleading, making the common language gap irrelevant — there is no English word to compare it against.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering HUCUSQUE in historical pleading records or early law reports should understand it as a structural signal rather than a substantive legal concept. It marks a boundary within the text of a pleading — separating what has been stated "thus far" from what follows. Its appearance in a document does not indicate a legal claim, defense, or element; it is a drafting convention.
The sole citation appearing in both Black's and Burrill's — "2 Mod. 24" — refers to Modern Reports, a series of English law reports from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Researchers working in that period's pleading records may encounter the term in its original context. Because the term is confined to a narrow window of English pleading practice predating procedural reform, it will not appear in American legal sources except as a historical curiosity or in treatises discussing the forms of common law pleading.
No jurisdictional variation is relevant; the term predates American legal practice and was never adopted as a term of art in U.S. courts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: both define HUCUSQUE as a Latin term used in old pleading to mean "hitherto," and both cite the same authority, 2 Mod. 24. Neither source elaborates on the procedural context in which the term appeared or explains what structural function it served within a pleading. Burrill's entry is marginally cleaner in its presentation, though substantively identical. Neither dictionary flags the term as having any variant meanings or contested usage, which is consistent with its narrow, mechanical function. Historical dictionaries offer nothing beyond the bare translation; researchers seeking context for how such markers operated in common law pleading forms will need to consult treatises on pleading practice rather than the dictionary shelf.