Definition
Intimation is a formal notice given to a party in a legal proceeding, typically signaling that a step has been taken or is about to be taken that affects their legal rights. The term carries distinct meanings depending on the legal system in which it appears.
1. Civil law. Any judicial act by which notice of a legal proceeding is given to a party. Most commonly, the formal notice that an appellant causes to be served on the opposing party, informing them that a judgment or sentence will be reviewed by a superior court. In this sense, intimation functions as the civil-law counterpart to what common-law systems might call notice of appeal.
2. Scots law. A formal written instrument, drawn by a notary, by which a party who has acquired a right from a stranger — most commonly an assignee of a debt or obligation — notifies the debtor or the original obligor of that assignment. Intimation to the debtor in Scots law is legally significant because it perfects the assignee's right and protects against competing claims; an assignment not intimated may be defeated by a later assignee who does intimate. The instrument is either a notarial document or a private acknowledgment endorsed by the debtor on the assignation itself.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A hint; an obscure or indirect suggestion or notice; a remote or ambiguous reference. Also, more broadly, an announcement or declaration.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of intimating; announcement; declaration; also a hint, obscure or indirect suggestion, or remote reference.
In ordinary English, intimation usually implies indirectness — a suggestion rather than a statement. In both civil and Scots law, the word means the opposite: a formal, deliberate, documented act of notice. Researchers encountering "intimation" in historical legal texts should not read any sense of ambiguity or indirection into the term.
Common Confusion
Intimation is occasionally confused with mere notification or service of process. The distinction matters in Scots law especially: intimation of an assignation is not simply a courtesy notice but a legally operative act that determines the priority of competing claims against a debtor. Failing to appreciate this operative character leads researchers to underestimate the term's significance in transactional and succession documents.
Why It Matters in Research
The term operates in two distinct legal traditions — civilian and Scots — and researchers must identify which system governs the source before interpreting it. In civilian materials, intimation is most often encountered in appellate procedure contexts. In Scots legal materials, it appears heavily in property, succession, and commercial law, where the intimation of assignations determined creditor priority and was essential to completing a transfer of personal rights.
Historical English-language legal dictionaries tend to present intimation as an exotic civil or Scots term with little relevance to common-law practice, which is largely accurate. Researchers working in English equity records or early American legal texts are unlikely to encounter the term as a term of art; its appearance in those materials usually carries only the ordinary English sense of suggestion or hint.
For researchers in Scots legal archives, the procedural mechanics of intimation — who performed it, how it was recorded, and whether it was acknowledged — are often legally determinative. The notarial instrument of intimation is a specific document type that may appear in notarial protocol books, estate records, or creditor files. Burrill's reference to Kames' Equity provides a useful doctrinal anchor for understanding the Scots property-law framework.
A practical trap: because common English uses "intimation" to mean a hint or indirect notice, transcribers and indexers of historical records sometimes miscategorize formal Scots notarial instruments of intimation as informal correspondence or marginal notes. The document type warrants closer examination whenever the term appears in a Scottish legal context.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree on the core structure: intimation carries both a general civil-law meaning (any judicial notice of a proceeding) and a more specific Scots-law meaning (notarial notice of assignation). Black's and Bouvier's are most complete on the civil-law appellate use; Burrill and Rapalje & Lawrence give the Scots assignation context the most precise treatment, with Burrill citing Bell's Dictionary and Kames' Equity as underlying authority.
None of the historical dictionaries fully develops the operative legal significance of Scots intimation for creditor priority — they describe the mechanism but do not explain its consequences. Researchers relying solely on these definitions may miss why intimation was so carefully recorded in practice. Bouvier's phrasing — "the notice or summons which an appellant causes to be given" — is the most practically useful description of the civil-law appellate sense, correctly identifying the appellant as the party who initiates intimation rather than the court.
Jurisdictional Note
Intimation as a legal term of art is confined almost entirely to Scots law and civilian jurisdictions. It has no established term-of-art meaning in English common law or standard American legal practice. Researchers working in Louisiana materials — the one American jurisdiction with deep civilian roots — may encounter the appellate-notice sense of the term in older procedural sources.