Definition
In legal usage, "kept" is the past tense of "keep" and appears most significantly in statutory and regulatory contexts where it describes the maintenance or retention of property, substances, or premises for a particular purpose. Its operative meaning is shaped heavily by context.
In prohibition-era and public nuisance law, "kept" as used in statutes targeting illegal premises—such as Section 21 of the National Prohibition Act—means kept for sale, barter, or other commercial purposes. The word does not sweep in mere possession or incidental storage; it requires a commercial or transactional purpose. Courts construing this language held that a place where intoxicating liquor was merely stored for personal use did not satisfy the statutory meaning of "kept" sufficient to constitute a nuisance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simple past and past participle of "keep."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Past tense of "keep." Notable compound: "kept mistress"—a concubine; a woman supported by a man as his paramour.
The gap between common and legal usage here is one of precision, not reversal. In ordinary English, "kept" simply means retained or maintained. In legal instruments and statutes, courts frequently interpret "kept" as implying purpose or intent—particularly commercial purpose—rather than mere physical retention. A researcher reading a nuisance statute who imports the plain common meaning may significantly underread the term's limiting function: courts have narrowed "kept" to exclude casual or personal possession, requiring proof of a commercial object.
Common Confusion
"Kept" is sometimes read as synonymous with "possessed" or "stored," but courts applying the National Prohibition Act drew a meaningful distinction. Possession or storage for personal consumption did not constitute "keeping" in the statutory sense. The commercial-purpose gloss was not self-evident from the text and was supplied by judicial construction. Researchers relying solely on the face of the statute without tracing case law will miss this narrowing interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard in prohibition-era legal materials. "Kept" appears repeatedly in nuisance provisions of the Volstead Act and analogous state statutes, and its meaning was contested and judicially shaped. The controlling construction—that "kept" requires commercial purpose—was established in litigation reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Researchers working in this period must treat "kept" as a term of art whose operative scope is defined by case law, not ordinary meaning.
Beyond prohibition law, "kept" appears in nuisance statutes, gaming laws, bawdy house prohibitions, and public health codes. In all these contexts, the same analytical pattern recurs: courts ask not merely whether a substance or activity was present on premises, but whether it was maintained there for a prohibited purpose. The purpose element is the load-bearing piece, and it is not always explicit in the text.
Researchers working with earlier sources should also note the Webster's 1913 compound "kept mistress," which appears in older legal pleadings and social-legislation debates. This usage—a woman maintained by a man outside marriage—surfaces in property disputes, testamentary challenges, and criminal conversation cases of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a distinct legal and social concept with its own documentary trail.
The Bouvier's entry also references "rock or earth oil" in the same passage, which appears to be a fragment from an adjacent entry and is likely an artifact of source pagination rather than a definition of "kept."
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary addresses "kept" narrowly, anchoring its treatment to Section 21 of the National Prohibition Act and citing Supreme Court authority for the commercial-purpose construction. Bouvier's correctly identifies the limiting function of the word but provides minimal analytical elaboration. The entry's brevity reflects the term's status as a contextual modifier rather than a standalone legal concept.
What historical dictionaries largely miss: the term's recurring role in non-prohibition nuisance contexts—gaming houses, houses of ill fame, unlicensed premises—where the same commercial-purpose logic applied but under different statutory regimes. Researchers should not treat Bouvier's prohibition-specific note as exhaustive of "kept" across nuisance law generally.
Jurisdictional Note
The commercial-purpose construction of "kept" under the National Prohibition Act was federal, but analogous state nuisance statutes used identical or near-identical language. State courts sometimes diverged on how much evidence of commercial purpose was required. Researchers working with state-level prohibition enforcement materials should verify the controlling state court construction rather than assuming the federal gloss applies.