INSTAR

7 definitions found across Law Mind sources

INSTARAuthored
The Law Mind • 974 words
Definition
A Latin term of art meaning "likeness," "equivalent," or "in the manner of." In legal usage, *instar* appears almost exclusively in two fixed phrases drawn from Blackstone's Commentaries: 1. *Instar dentium* — "like teeth." Used in property law to describe the legal character of industrial fixtures such as millstones and the like, which, though physically removable, were treated as part of the freehold on the analogy of teeth: things so integral to the structure or function of a whole that they partake of its nature. 2. *Instar omnium* — "equivalent to all" or "tantamount to all." A phrase of epistemic weight, signifying that a single piece of evidence or a single authority is so conclusive or comprehensive that it stands in for the entire body of competing proof or precedent. Used by Blackstone to describe, for example, the probative force of a definitive record or the authority of a paramount text. Neither phrase carries independent doctrinal weight today. Both are archaic forms encountered almost entirely in historical common law sources and in quotations from or commentary upon Blackstone. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In biology, an *instar* is a developmental stage of an arthropod between molts — one of the successive forms an insect or crustacean passes through before reaching sexual maturity. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To stud as with stars." The verb form *instar* meant to decorate or set with stars, used rarely in poetic contexts. Neither the biological nor the poetic meaning has any connection to the legal term. The legal *instar* is purely Latin, used only in the fixed phrases above, and should not be confused with the English homograph in either its scientific or literary sense. A researcher encountering *instar* in an older legal text is almost certainly reading a Latin prepositional construction, not a vernacular English word. ---
Common Confusion
Anderson's Dictionary of Law assigns to this headword a definition for *inspection of documents* — a wholly different concept. This appears to be a cataloguing or typographical error in that source, where an entry for *inspection* was misplaced or mislabeled under *instar*. Researchers relying on Anderson's for this term should disregard that definition entirely; it has no relationship to the Latin *instar* and reflects an editorial anomaly rather than a competing legal usage. ---
Why It Matters in Research
*Instar* is a navigational term rather than a substantive one. Researchers will not find it as a stand-alone doctrine but will encounter it embedded in quotations from or paraphrases of Blackstone, particularly in older American treatises, property law commentaries, and evidence texts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The phrase *instar omnium* has modest rhetorical significance: when encountered in a historical source, it signals that the author is asserting overwhelming or conclusive authority — a claim worth scrutinizing rather than accepting at face value. Courts and writers who invoked *instar omnium* were frequently pressing a point that the actual balance of authority did not fully support. *Instar dentium* is narrower in application, arising in the law of fixtures and the distinction between real and personal property. If a researcher is tracing the common law treatment of fixtures — millstones, bolted machinery, woven-in carpets — the phrase marks a class of objects whose legal character was determined by analogy to bodily integration rather than by mere physical attachment. Because the term is Latin and appears only in fixed phrases, it is easily overlooked in keyword searches that do not account for the full phrase. Searching *instar* alone will surface Anderson's anomalous inspection-of-documents entry and potentially biological literature in mixed databases. Search *instar omnium* or *instar dentium* as complete units. No significant modern caselaw turns on this term. Its research value is almost entirely historical and interpretive. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: *instar* means likeness, size, or equivalent, and the only legal content offered is the two Blackstone phrases with their corresponding volume and page citations. This convergence reflects the fact that all three sources are ultimately drawing from the same origin — Blackstone's Commentaries — rather than from independent doctrinal development. Burrill's treatment is marginally more concise but substantively identical. Neither Black's edition adds anything beyond the citations, which is itself informative: the term had no life independent of those two fixed expressions even by the time Black's first edition appeared. Anderson's entry is, as noted above, an editorial anomaly and should not be treated as a competing definition. It adds nothing to the legal meaning of *instar*. What the historical dictionaries collectively omit: any discussion of how *instar omnium* was actually deployed in Anglo-American argument and whether courts received it as a genuine evidentiary or precedential standard. The phrase appears in Blackstone primarily as a rhetorical flourish, and the dictionaries transmit it without that critical context. ---
Jurisdictional Note
*Instar* and its phrases carry no jurisdiction-specific variation. Their meaning derives entirely from the Latin and from Blackstone, which was received authority across common law jurisdictions. The phrases are equally archaic in English, American, and other common law systems. ---
Related Terms
FIXTURE — the property law context in which *instar dentium* most often appears OYER — procedural mechanism for document productionrelevant to the Anderson's misplaced entry PROFERT — companion concept to oyer in the production of deeds and records AD VALOREM — another Latin prepositional phrase of similar structural typeuseful comparison for researchers navigating Latin terms in legal sources BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES — the source text from which both fixed phrases derive INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS — the concept Anderson's incorrectly placed under this headword; see that entry for the actual doctrine
INSTARmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
Lat. Likeness; the likeness, size, or equivalent of a thing. Instar den- tium, like teeth. 2 Bl. Comm. 295. Instar omnium, equivalent or tantamount to all. Id. 146; 3 BL. Comm. 231.
INSTARmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
Iat. Likeness; the likeness, size, or equivalent of a thing. IJInstar dentium, like teeth. 2 Bl. Comm. 296. Jnstar omnium, equivalent or tantamount to all. Id. 146; 3 Bl. Comm. 231.
INSTARmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
Inspection of documents, or of records. Refers to the right of a party to a suit to inspect and take copies of writings or records, in the possession of his opponent or of a public officer, which are material to the maintenance of his case. In civil practice, independently of the old doctrine of profert and oyer, a rule may be granted to compel the production and permit the copying of such papers as are essential to the maintenance of a contested right. But surrender of the documents will not be ordered. The doctrine applies to public, corporation, and private documents, in which the petitioner has an interest, and which are not of an incriminating nature. Previous demand must have been made, and the documents must be under respondent's exclusive control.1 See DISCOVERY, 6, Bill of; PRODUCE, 2; RECORD, Nul tiel. Inspection of the person. In an action for damages for personal injuries, the plaintiff may be required by the court, upon application, to submit his person to an examination for the purpose of ascertaining the character and extent of his injuries. The courts have held in divorce cases, that an examination may be ordered of a defendant alleged to be impotent.2 Trial by inspection. When, for the greater expedition of a cause, in some point or issue the object of the senses, the judge, upon the testimony of his own sense, decides the point in dispute.3 When the fact, from its nature, must be evident to the court either from ocular demonstration or other irrefragable proof, there the law departs from its usual custom, the verdict of twelve men, and relies upon the judgment of the court alone; as, in allegations of non-age, that plaintiff is dead when one calling himself plaintiff appears, that a man is an idiot; and in references to the almanac. But in all these cases, the judges, if they conceive a doubt, may order it to be tried by jury.3 Inspection is to be regarded rather as a means of dispensing with evidence than as evidence itself. That which the court or jury sees need not be proved. It is valuable as an ingredient of circumstantial evidence. A common illustration is where juries are taken to view the scene where the events of litigation occurred. All materials and objects in any way part of the res gestæ may be produced at the trial of 11 Whart. Ev. §§ 742-56, cases; 1 Greenl. Ev. §§ 471-78, 559-62, cases; Brewer v. Watson, 71 Ala. 304-6 (1882), cases; Commonwealth, ex rel. Sellers v. Phoenix Iron Co., 105 Pa. 115-19 (1884), cases; 23 Am. Law Reg. 395400 (1884), cases; 22 Cent. Law J. 341 (1886), cases. 2 See generally Schroeder v. Chicago, &c. R. Co., 47 Iowa, 376-83 (1877); Atchison, &c. R. Co. v. Thul, 29 Kan. 466, 474 (1883); 19 Cent. Law J. 144-48 (1884), cases; 2 Bish. M. & D. § 590, cases. 33 Bl. Com. 332-33. the case. But inspection alone is not relied upon when more exact proof can be produced.1 3. Supervision; trusteeship. Deed of inspectorship. An assignment by a debtor of his property, by which he is allowed to manage the property for a specified time, under the inspection of certain individuals, appointed by the body of the creditors, whose duty is to see that the property is disposed of in the manner most conducive to the interests of the creditors.2 See COMPOSITION: LIQUIDATOR. L. Like; resembling; equivalent to. Instar omnium. Representative of all. Money is said to be instar omnium as to values; one act, as to the purpose of all acts; 10 and one case, as to the reasoning in all cases of its class. 11 11 Whart. Ev. §§ 345-47, cases; 25 Law J. 3-7 (1887), cases. 2 [4 South. Law Rev. 639 (1878), cases. 3 Spelled, also, instalment. 4 Pelton v. Bemis, 44 Ohio St. 57 (1886); Ryall v. Prince, 82 Ala. 266 (1886). * Cushman v. Jewell, 7 Hun, 525 (1876); Smith v. Newland, 9 id. 553 (1877); 89 111. 233; 20 Kan. 137; 27 Mich. 209, 463; 33 id. 94; 41 N. Y. 155; 70 id. 466; 13 Rep. 511. 3 Chitty, Bl. Com. 287. 7 See 3 Kent, 355, 378; 18 Johns. 292. • Moffat v. Dickson, 3 Col. 315 (1877). 91 Bl. Com. 266; 2 id. 466; 3 id. 231. 10 4 Bl. Com. 155. 11 4 W. N. C. (Pa.) 500. E
INSTARv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To stud as with stars. [R.] "A golden throne instarred with gems." J. Barlow.
instarnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC 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.
Any one of the several stages of postembryonic development which an arthropod undergoes, between molts, before it reaches sexual maturity. | An arthropod at a specified one of these stages of development. | A stage in development.
instarverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC 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.
To stud or adorn with stars or other brilliants; to star. | To make a star of; set as a star.

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