Definition
A Latin maxim-term from the civil and common law traditions meaning "the undefined" or "that which is without particular specification or designation." In legal usage, *indefinitum* describes a reference made in general, unspecified terms rather than by particular enumeration. The term appears most prominently as part of the maxim *Indefinitum æquipollet universali* — the undefined is equivalent to the universal — meaning that a general, unspecified reference to a thing will be construed to include the whole of it rather than only a part.
Applied in practice, the principle operates most often in the construction of wills, deeds, and grants. Where a testator or grantor refers to property in general or imprecise terms — as "the said lands" or "the said parcels" — without limiting the reference to a specific portion, the reference is taken to comprehend everything answering to that general description.
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Common Confusion
*Indefinitum* should not be confused with *uncertainty* as a ground for invalidity. The maxim *indefinitum æquipollet universali* presupposes that the general term has an identifiable referent — the question is only how much of that referent is captured by the reference. A description challenged as void for uncertainty raises a categorically different issue. Conflating the two can lead to misreading older opinions that cite the maxim: the court is not validating a vague description, it is choosing a broad construction of a general one.
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Why It Matters in Research
*Indefinitum* is not a standalone doctrine but a canon of construction, and researchers should approach it accordingly. It appears in older cases and treatises as a maxim — a shorthand expression of interpretive principle — rather than as an operative legal rule with its own body of doctrine. The practical weight of the principle has been absorbed into modern rules of instrument construction, where courts apply the same logic without invoking the Latin tag.
Researchers working in historical sources, particularly pre-nineteenth-century equity and probate materials, will encounter *indefinitum æquipollet universali* as a citation-ready authority for construing ambiguous descriptions in wills and conveyances. The maxim functioned as persuasive support for a broad reading of general terms, counterbalancing arguments that an unspecified reference was void for uncertainty.
The trap in historical research is reading the maxim as a rule against uncertainty rather than a rule of inclusion. *Indefinitum* does not save a fatally vague description; it resolves a choice between a partial and a total reading of a term that is general but not meaningless. Courts applying this maxim were not excusing ambiguity — they were choosing the more complete construction when a reference could encompass either part or all of a subject matter.
In the Law Mind corpus, this term connects naturally to research on testamentary construction, the cy-pres doctrine, latent and patent ambiguity in deeds, and the broader body of interpretive maxims drawn from civil law and adopted into English equity practice. Researchers tracing the reception of civilian maxims into Anglo-American law will find *indefinitum* sitting alongside *expressio unius*, *noscitur a sociis*, and similar canons that circulated through Brooke, Coke, and their successors.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry: *indefinitum* means indefinite, undefined, without specification or particular designation — in general terms. Burrill records the maxim *Indefinitum æquipollet universali* with a citation to 1 Ventris 368, and illustrates the principle through the testamentary context: where a testator devises lands in a particular location to one party and then refers, in a subsequent clause, to "the said" lands or parcels in general terms, the general reference is construed to include the whole of the subject property rather than only a part.
Burrill's treatment, while brief, correctly identifies both the Latin source and its operational context. What Burrill does not provide — and what no historical dictionary entry of this type typically addresses — is the limitation on the maxim: courts did not apply it to rescue descriptions so vague as to be incapable of application. The maxim resolved ambiguity between whole and part; it did not manufacture certainty from nothing. Researchers relying solely on the dictionary entry should supplement with the treatise literature on will construction to understand where courts drew that line.
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