IMPLEMENTS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

IMPLEMENTSAuthored

The Law Mind • 922 words

Definition

Implements, as a legal noun (plural), refers to tools, instruments, utensils, or other physical objects used in a trade, occupation, or household. The term most commonly appears in three legal contexts:

1. Implements of trade: The tools and instruments a person uses in the exercise of their occupation or business — hammers, looms, plows, ledgers, and similar working equipment. This category has particular significance in exemption law, where statutes protecting a debtor's livelihood assets frequently use this phrase.

2. Implements of husbandry: Agricultural tools and equipment — plows, harrows, wagons, and similar farm instruments — used in the cultivation of land. This sub-category appears with particular frequency in agricultural exemption statutes and in older conveyancing disputes over what personal property passed with a farm.

3. Household implements: Items of domestic use and furniture employed in maintaining a home. This sense overlaps with the older legal concept of household goods and appears in probate, dower, and exemption contexts.

In all three senses, the unifying concept is utility: implements are things that supply wants or enable work, as distinguished from mere decorative objects or stock-in-trade held for sale.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): As a verb, "implements" is the third-person singular present tense of "to implement" — meaning to put a plan, decision, or system into effect.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): As a noun, "implements" meant tools, utensils, or instruments used in an occupation or for a purpose; as, the implements of war, trade, or husbandry.

The gap matters for researchers: virtually every modern encounter with the word "implements" will be verbal — "the agency implements the rule." In legal sources predating the mid-twentieth century, however, "implements" appears predominantly as a plural noun denoting physical objects. A researcher scanning historical statutes, probate records, or exemption cases must recognize this noun sense immediately, as mistaking it for the verbal form will cause misreading of the document.

Common Confusion

Implements is frequently used interchangeably with tools, utensils, instruments, and apparatus in both historical statutes and judicial opinions, but these terms are not always synonymous in a given statutory scheme. Some exemption statutes enumerate separate categories — tools, implements, apparatus — and courts have occasionally held that the categories carry distinct meanings. Do not assume that a ruling interpreting "tools of the trade" controls the meaning of "implements of trade" under a different statute without checking the specific text and jurisdiction.

Why It Matters in Research

The primary research importance of implements is in exemption law. From the nineteenth century onward, state legislatures enacted debtor-protection statutes exempting a person's implements of trade or husbandry from execution by creditors. The scope of these exemptions — what counts as an implement, how much value is covered, whether motor vehicles or electronic equipment qualify today — generated substantial case law. Researchers working in bankruptcy, creditor-debtor relations, or the history of economic populism will encounter this term constantly.

Traps in historical sources: Older cases define implements by reference to the manual, physical nature of the work. A nineteenth-century court might exclude a merchant's account books or a physician's horse-drawn buggy from the category while including hand tools. Modern courts applying the same statutory language have expanded the category considerably. Do not project modern interpretive results backward into historical sources, or vice versa.

The implements of husbandry category has a second life in modern vehicle law: many states exempt "implements of husbandry" (tractors, combines, farm trailers) from motor vehicle registration and titling requirements. This regulatory exemption is conceptually distinct from the debtor-protection exemption, and the two bodies of case law define the term differently.

Corpus connections: Researchers encountering implements in probate inventories, estate appraisals, or dower calculations should note that historical courts distinguished between implements (functional objects) and furniture or goods (household contents more broadly). The distinction affected what the surviving spouse received and what passed to heirs or creditors.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) defines implements consistently: things used or employed for a trade or as furniture of a house, with particular application to tools, utensils, vessels, and instruments of labor. The first edition cites an 1847 Massachusetts case; the second adds several Massachusetts and Alabama citations, grounding the definition in the exemption-law litigation of those states.

Anderson's Dictionary of Law does not provide a usable entry on implements as a noun — the reproduced text concerns impeachment of witnesses, suggesting a transcription or indexing error in the source. Researchers should not rely on Anderson's for this term.

The historical dictionaries are consistent but thin. They capture the core noun sense accurately but give no guidance on the regulatory implements-of-husbandry exemption that would develop in vehicle law, nor on the expansion of the trade-implements category as occupations shifted from manual to knowledge-based work. Modern statutory construction cases have largely outrun the dictionary definitions.

Jurisdictional Note

Exemption statutes using implements of trade or implements of husbandry are creatures of state law and vary significantly in dollar caps, category definitions, and the occupations covered. Some states have modernized the language; others retain nineteenth-century phrasing that courts have had to stretch. Federal bankruptcy law incorporates state exemption schemes under 11 U.S.C. § 522, making state-law definitions of implements directly relevant in federal bankruptcy proceedings.

IMPLEMENTSmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Such things as are used or employed for a trade, or furniture of a house. 11 Metc. (Mass.) 82. Whatever may supply wants; particularly applied to tools, utensils, vessels, instruments of labor; as, the implements of trade or of husbandry. 23 Iowa, 359; 6 Gray, 298.

IMPLEMENTSmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Such things as are used or employed for a trade, or furniture of a — house. Coolidge v. Choate, 11 Metc. (Mass.) - 82 Whatever may supply wants; particularly applied to tools, utensils, vessels, instruments of labor; as, the implements of trade or of husbandry. Goddard v. Chaffee, 2 Allen (Mass.) 895, 79 Am. Dec. 796; Sallee v. Waters, 17 Ala. 486; Rayner v. Whicher, 6 Allen (Mass.) 204; In re Slade’s Estate, 122 Cal. 434, 55 Pac. 158,

IMPLEMENTSmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

it would appear that deception has been practiced, the examiner being guilty of no laches.1 May impeach an opposing witness by a former statement contradicting that made in his examination in chief; but cannot contradict on a collateral matter. May contradict answers as to motive; question veracity; show bias or conviction of infamous crime.1 May attack the impeaching witness, and sustain the impeached, but not by proof of former consistent statements. Corroboration is discretionary in the court.3 To impair his credibility, a witness may be crossexamined as to specific facts tending to disgrace or degrade him, although irrelevant to the main issue. The range of cross-examination depends upon the appearance and conduct of the witness and other circumstances. It is only where the discretion in the court has been abused, to the prejudice of a party, that error will lie. See CHARACTER; CREDIT, 1; ExAMINATION, 9; REPUTATION.. 4. To convict of such misconduct as justifies removal from office. Articles of impeachment. The formal statement of charges of misconduct preferred against an officer. Like an indictment for crime, must be sufficiently certain in averment to admit of a defense being framed, and to be used in bar of another accusation upon the same subject-matter in case of acquittal. Court of impeachment. The tribunal before which articles of impeachment are presented and the charges tried. Charges which will warrant an impeachment may not sustain an indictment. The prosecution is conducted before some branch of the political power, or before a quasi political tribunal. "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." "The House of Representatives the sole Power of Impeachment.". shall have "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present." "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted 11 Whart. Ev. §§ 549-67, cases. 2 Ferry v. Breed, 117 Mass. 165 (1875); 35 Vt. 68. 31 Whart. Ev. §§ 568-71, cases. See generally Seller v. Jenkins, 97 Ind. 433-39 (1884), cases. State v. Pfefferle, 36 Kan. 92-96 (1886), cases, Johnston, J. See also Pullen v. Pullen, 43 N. J. E. 136 (1887), cases; State v. Thomas, Sup. Ct. N. C. (Dec. 21, 1887), cases. Constitution, Art. II, sec. 4. Constitution, Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 5. shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."1 The Senate has sat as a court of impeachment in the cases of Judge Chase, in 1804; Judge Peck, in 1831; Judge Humphreys, in 1862; and of President Johnson, in 1868. 2 Proceedings under the constitutions of the States, for the trial of State officials, are similar to the foregoing. See JUDGE; PARDON. Things necessary in any trade, without which the work cannot be performed; also, the furniture of a house. Implements of household are tables, presses, cupboards, bedsteads, wainscot, and the like.6 Rarely, if ever, includes an animal. As used in a statute of exemptions, does not include a horse and cart." Constitution, Art. I. sec. 3, cl. 6-7. See 2 Bancroft, Const. 193. See Story, Const. § 791; 2 Am. Law Rev. 547-67 (1868); 6 Am. Law Reg. 257-83 (1867), T. W. Dwight; ib. 641-80 (1867), W. Lawrence; 4 Bl. Com. 259-61. 817 Wall. 328; 106 U. S. 562; 37 Pa. 292. Story, Eq. Pl. §§ 266-70; Wood v. Mann, 1 Sumn. 588-89 (1834), Story, J.; 3 Story R. 13; 15 F. R. 561. • Woods v. Morrell, 1 Johns. Ch. *106 (1814), Kent. Ch. See also Hood v. Inman, 4 id. *438 (1820). • Coolidge v. Choate, 11 Metc. 82 (1846). Enscoe v. Dunn, 44 Conn. 99 (1876); Wallace v. Collins, 5 Ark. 46 (1843).

implementsverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

third-person singular simple present indicative of implement

implementsnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

plural of implement

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In