Definition
A Latin term from old English land law meaning to lie sideways — that is, to extend along the side of a parcel rather than toward or away from a fixed point. Used in descriptions of land boundaries, laterare identifies the lateral or side relationship of one parcel to another. It stands in direct opposition to capitare, which means to head or abut — the relationship where one parcel meets or terminates against another at its end. Together, laterare and capitare provided conveyancers with precise relational vocabulary for describing how parcels of land were oriented with respect to neighboring lands.
Common Confusion
LATERARE vs. CAPITARE: These two terms form a complementary pair and should not be conflated. Capitare describes the end-to-end or abutting relationship of a parcel — where land heads against or terminates upon another. Laterare describes the side-to-side relationship — where land lies alongside another. In historical land descriptions, confusing which direction a parcel ran could affect boundary interpretation, particularly in strip-field arrangements common in medieval English land tenure.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering laterare will find it almost exclusively in historical conveyancing instruments, boundary descriptions in old English land grants, and records touching on medieval strip-agriculture or common-field systems. It does not appear in modern drafting practice; contemporary surveyors and conveyancers have replaced this relational Latin vocabulary with metes-and-bounds descriptions and compass bearings.
The key research trap is treating laterare as purely decorative Latin. In the documents where it appears, the distinction between lateral and terminal relationships had real consequences for identifying which parcel lay where on the ground. A deed that placed land as laterating upon a road rather than capitating upon it was making a specific claim about orientation.
Researchers working in English ecclesiastical records, manor court rolls, or early colonial American land grants (which sometimes carried forward English conveyancing conventions) should recognize the term when it appears. Its presence is a signal that the document follows an older, formal Latin descriptive tradition rather than a vernacular or metes-and-bounds approach.
The corpus connection to capitare is essential: no entry on laterare is complete without its counterpart, and Burrill's is the only shelf source that makes this structural relationship explicit and ties it to a root (latus, meaning side).
Historical Dictionary Support
The shelf sources agree on the core definition without meaningful divergence: laterare means to lie sideways, in opposition to lying endways, used in descriptions of lands. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence state this formula almost identically and without elaboration. Burrill's is the most analytically useful entry: it supplies the Latin root (latus, side), identifies the term as belonging to old English law, provides the explicit contrast with capitare, and cites Cowell — a reference to John Cowell's Interpreter (1607), a standard early glossary of legal terms that confirms the term's place in the historical technical vocabulary of English land law.
None of the shelf sources illustrate the term with a recorded case or a specimen deed, which reflects the word's role as descriptive vocabulary embedded in instruments rather than as a disputed legal concept generating its own body of authority. Burrill's citation to Cowell is the only scholarly anchor offered across all four sources.