Definition
To include means to comprise, contain, or embrace something within a larger whole. In legal usage, the word performs precise work in statutes, contracts, and instruments, and its meaning — whether a list following "include" or "including" is exhaustive or merely illustrative — is one of the most litigated questions of construction in legal texts.
Two distinct operative meanings appear in legal instruments:
1. Illustrative (non-exhaustive): "Including" introduces examples that do not limit the broader term they follow. Under this reading, a statute defining "vehicle" to mean "any conveyance, including automobiles and motorcycles" does not restrict the term to those examples. This is the dominant modern interpretive default: courts and drafters generally treat "including" as signaling that the list is illustrative, not exhaustive.
2. Limitative (exhaustive): In some instruments and jurisdictions, "including" or "include" has been read as words of restriction, narrowing the term to only what follows. This reading is disfavored today but appears in older cases and certain statutory schemes, particularly when the surrounding context suggests a closed category.
The practical stakes are high: a drafter who writes "assets, including cash and receivables" may intend to enumerate all assets or merely to give examples. Readers and courts cannot resolve the ambiguity from the word itself.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To bring into a group, class, set, or total as a new part or member; to consider as part of something; to enclose or comprehend.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To confine within; to hold; to contain; to shut up; as the shell of a nut includes the kernel; also, to comprehend or comprise, as a genus the species.
In ordinary English, "include" carries no inherent ambiguity about exhaustiveness — we say "the box includes a manual" without implying the manual is the only contents. Legal usage preserves both the ordinary meaning and a competing interpretive tradition that treats the word as potentially limitative. Researchers must not assume the ordinary meaning governs; courts have gone both ways, and the drafting context is decisive.
Common Confusion
"Include" vs. "means" or "consists of": Drafters sometimes use "include" when they intend an exhaustive definition, and "means" or "consists of" when they want a closed list. The words are not interchangeable. A definition reading "X includes A and B" is generally construed to leave open the possibility that X also encompasses C, D, and beyond. A definition reading "X means A and B" is generally construed as exhaustive. Conflating these words in drafting — or ignoring the distinction in research — produces interpretive risk. Many statutory and regulatory glossaries use "includes" for non-exhaustive lists and "means" for closed ones, but practice is inconsistent.
Why It Matters in Research
The word "include" is deceptively ordinary, which makes it dangerous in research. Several navigational points matter:
Historical sources are unreliable on the exhaustiveness question. Anderson notes early decisions construing legacy language — a gift of "one hundred dollars, including money trusteed" was held to mean only one hundred dollars total, not one hundred dollars plus the trust funds. That restrictive construction reflects an older limitative reading of "including" that has largely fallen away in modern statutory interpretation but still surfaces in contract and trust disputes over older instruments. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century materials should not assume the modern illustrative default applies.
The legislative drafting tradition matters enormously here. Federal drafting conventions (reflected in guides such as the Office of the Federal Register's Document Drafting Handbook) treat "includes" as non-exhaustive. Many uniform acts do the same. But not all legislatures and drafters follow these conventions, and courts have sometimes deviated.
The corpus connection between INCLUDE and the canons of construction is direct. The ejusdem generis canon — which limits general words following a list of specifics — interacts with "including" clauses in complex ways. When "including" introduces a list, ejusdem generis may cabin the scope of the broader term if a court treats the list as defining a category. Surplusage canon arguments arise when parties contend that treating "including" as illustrative would render the listed items meaningless. Researchers pursuing questions of statutory scope should trace both canons through the corpus alongside this entry.
Contract research presents a specific trap: courts construing insurance policies, trust instruments, and commercial agreements have split more sharply than courts construing statutes. The same word in a policy exclusion may receive a limitative reading under contra proferentem, while the same word in a coverage clause receives an illustrative reading to favor the insured.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law gives the most compact and useful summary available in the historical shelf sources: "to confine within; to comprise, embrace, comprehend." The cross-reference to INCLOSE in Anderson is worth noting — it signals that the word carried physical containment connotations that reinforced the limitative reading in older case law. Anderson's treatment of "including" through the legacy example (one hundred dollars, including money trusteed) is a rare instance of a historical dictionary giving a concrete judicial application rather than abstract definition, and it correctly flags that courts have used the word to limit, not expand, a stated sum.
The historical sources do not address the modern drafting convention that distinguishes "includes" (illustrative) from "means" (exhaustive), because that convention postdates most shelf dictionaries. This is a significant gap: researchers who rely solely on Anderson or similar sources will find no guidance on the illustrative/exhaustive split that dominates contemporary disputes. Modern treatises on statutory interpretation — notably Scalia and Garner's Reading Law — give extensive treatment to this question and should supplement historical dictionary research on any live interpretive dispute.
Jurisdictional Note
Most U.S. federal courts apply the presumption that "including" is illustrative and non-exhaustive absent clear contrary intent. State courts vary, particularly in contract contexts, and some states have enacted rules of construction in their general statutory provisions that define "includes" or "including" expressly. Researchers working with state instruments should check any applicable definitional or rules-of-construction statute before assuming the federal default applies.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Statutory Interpretation
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Ejusdem Generis
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Surplusage Canon