Definition
Innominate means "not named" or "unclassified." In legal usage, the term describes obligations, contracts, or actions that fall outside the formally named and recognized categories of a legal system — most significantly, those contracts in Roman law that did not fit the established classifications but were nonetheless enforceable.
In modern common law usage, the term survives primarily in two contexts:
1. Innominate contracts: Agreements that do not belong to any recognized or named class of contract — neither sale, hire, loan, deposit, nor any other nominate type. Originating in Roman civil law, the concept passed into Scots law and other civilian-influenced systems, where it still carries doctrinal weight.
2. Innominate terms: In English contract law, a category of contractual terms that are neither conditions nor warranties. Whether breach of an innominate term justifies repudiation or merely damages depends on the consequences of the breach, not the label of the term itself.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Having no name, nameless, unnamed; anonymous.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Having no name; unnamed. Also used anatomically to designate unnamed bodily structures — the innominate bone (hip bone), innominate artery, innominate vein.
The ordinary meaning is simply descriptive: a thing without a name. In law, the term carries structural significance. An innominate contract or term is not merely unnamed as a matter of accident — it occupies a specific residual legal category defined precisely by its exclusion from named classifications. The gap matters: a researcher encountering "innominate" in a general text might read it as casual description, while in a legal or civilian text it signals a doctrine with its own rules of enforcement and remedy.
Common Confusion
Two distinct legal uses of "innominate" can be conflated:
The Roman law / civilian concept of innominate contracts concerns agreements that fall outside the four named Roman contract types (real, verbal, literal, consensual) and the specific nominate contracts within each. These are enforced through a general actio in factum or actio praescriptis verbis, not a named action.
The English contract law concept of innominate terms is modern and analytically separate, introduced by the Court of Appeal in Hong Kong Fir Shipping Co Ltd v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd [1962] 2 QB 26. This doctrine sorts contractual terms into a three-part framework — conditions, warranties, and innominate terms — and has no direct Roman law antecedent. A researcher working in English contract law who encounters "innominate" is almost certainly dealing with this modern classification, not with the civilian contract category.
Why It Matters in Research
Historical sources lean heavily on the Roman law meaning. Black's (both editions) and Burrill define innominate exclusively through the civil law lens, treating it as a category of contracts lacking a specific named remedy. Researchers working in common law jurisdictions — particularly English contract law after the mid-twentieth century — will find this framing incomplete. The innominate term doctrine developed independently of civilian tradition and is not reflected in these dictionaries at all.
Scots law occupies a middle position. Because Scots law is a mixed system drawing on both civilian and common law traditions, "innominate contract" retains doctrinal force there in ways it does not in pure common law jurisdictions. Researchers in Scots law should not assume the English contract term classification applies, and vice versa.
In historical sources, the contrast is between nominate (nominate) and innominate. Nominate contracts had defined names, established forms, and specific remedies. Innominate contracts — do ut des, do ut facias, facio ut des, facio ut facias (I give that you may give; I give that you may do; I do that you may give; I do that you may do) — were recognized as binding but had no dedicated actio. This fourfold subdivision of innominate contracts appears in Justinian's Digest and in the institutional writers; researchers tracing the civilian taxonomy should look there rather than relying solely on the brief entries in Black's or Burrill.
The anatomical usage in general-language sources (innominate bone, innominate artery) is irrelevant to legal research but can appear in historical medical-legal texts and coroner's records. Context disambiguates easily.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Burrill agree precisely on the core definition: innominate means not named or classed, belonging to no specific class, ranking under a general head. All three apply the term to Roman law contracts for which no certain or precise remedy was appointed, leaving parties to a general action on the case.
Black's 2nd ed. expands slightly, noting that innominate contracts are "literally the unclassified contracts of Roman law" — contracts which are neither re, verbis, litteris, nor consensu (the entry in the source is truncated, but the reference is to the four nominate classes of Roman obligation). Burrill cites the Digest at 19.4 and 19.5, which contains the classical texts on innominate contracts, including discussion of the actio praescriptis verbis.
None of these sources address the English law innominate term doctrine, which postdates them. This is the principal gap. Researchers who rely on these dictionaries alone will have an accurate account of the civilian meaning and essentially no account of the modern English meaning.
Jurisdictional Note
In English and Welsh law, "innominate term" is a live doctrinal category with ongoing case law significance, distinct from the civilian contract classification. In Scots law, "innominate contract" retains force as a civilian concept. In jurisdictions with purely common law traditions and no significant civilian influence, the term appears rarely outside historical or comparative contexts.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Roman Law (contract classification; nominate and innominate obligations)
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Contract Classification (conditions, warranties, and innominate terms in English law)