Definition
In grosso is a Latin and Law Latin phrase meaning "in gross" — that is, existing independently, in bulk, or detached from any particular parcel of land. In legal usage, the phrase most commonly appears in the law of property rights, particularly easements, where a right held in grosso is one that belongs to a person or entity as an individual rather than as the owner of a benefited estate.
A right held in grosso stands alone. It does not attach to, depend upon, or travel with any dominant tenement. This distinguishes it from rights appurtenant, which are inseparable from ownership of a specific parcel and pass automatically with that land on conveyance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Gross" in ordinary English means total or aggregate before deductions; also, informal for something offensive or unpleasant.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "In gross" is listed as an adverbial phrase meaning "in bulk; all parts taken together; wholesale; without deduction."
The commercial sense of "gross" as wholesale or in bulk survives in modern English and actually tracks one thread of the legal meaning — a right in grosso stands apart from the smaller parcels of land law, undivided and unattached. But the legal phrase carries a technical precision the commercial usage does not: in property law, "in gross" signals a structural relationship between a right and land (or the absence of one), not merely a quantity distinction.
Common Confusion
The phrase is most often confused with its antonym, appurtenant. A right appurtenant runs with the land and requires both a dominant and a servient tenement. A right in grosso exists in favor of a person regardless of land ownership. The confusion matters practically: easements appurtenant pass automatically on conveyance of the dominant estate; easements in gross, depending on jurisdiction and whether they are commercial or personal, may or may not be assignable and often expire with the holder.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering in grosso in older English and American materials — deeds, pleadings, registry instruments, equity proceedings — should read the phrase as a signal about the structural character of the right at issue, not merely its quantity or scope.
The phrase appears with particular frequency in historical materials concerning common law rights such as piscary, estovers, turbary, and other profits à prendre. In that context, determining whether a right was held in grosso or appurtenant governed who could exercise it, whether it could be conveyed separately, and whether it would pass with an estate or lapse. Researchers working in early American property records will find the phrase used without explanation, on the assumption the reader knows the distinction.
One navigational trap: in grosso occasionally appears in commercial and mercantile contexts in older sources with nothing more than the wholesale or bulk meaning — consistent with the Burrill excerpt's reference to Nec in grosso, nec ad retalliam (neither in gross nor by retail). Researchers should check context before assuming the property-law sense applies.
The phrase is also relevant when tracing the history of specific easements in title chains. A right originally created in grosso cannot be converted to an appurtenant right by later conveyancing language alone; early cases treated this distinction as fixed at creation, and historical instruments often omit any explicit label, requiring inference from context.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is minimal but accurate. The quoted maxim — Nec in grosso, nec ad retalliam, drawn from the Registrum Omnium Brevium — places the phrase squarely in the wholesale/retail commercial register, illustrating the commercial root of the terminology before it acquired its full property-law specificity. Burrill cross-references the phrase to "In Gross," which would carry the substantive property law analysis in his fuller treatment.
Burrill's entry does not address the easement-law dimension directly, which reflects the common pattern in historical dictionaries of treating the Latin form as a mere definitional pointer while reserving doctrinal content for the anglicized headword. Researchers should therefore not treat the brevity of the in grosso entry as indicating the term is minor; it is a navigational artifact of how historical lexicographers divided Latin phrases from their English equivalents.
Jurisdictional Note
American jurisdictions have diverged on the assignability of easements in gross. Many states distinguish between personal easements in gross (non-assignable, extinguished at death) and commercial easements in gross (assignable). English common law sources, which are the primary historical referent for in grosso, did not always draw this line cleanly. Researchers should not project modern American assignability rules backward onto historical instruments using the phrase.