Definition
LUCRUM is a Latin legal term with two distinct meanings in historical legal usage:
1. Gain, profit, or advantage. In this sense, lucrum appears in civil law contexts to describe the benefit or financial gain derived from a transaction or wrongful act. It is most frequently encountered in the phrase lucri causa — meaning "for the sake of gain" — which describes the intent animating theft or conversion under civil law traditions.
2. A small slip or parcel of land. Bouvier records this as a separate, apparently archaic usage, though it appears without elaboration or context.
Common Confusion
The two definitions recorded for lucrum are unrelated and traceable to different legal traditions. The land-parcel meaning (Bouvier) is obscure and likely confined to a narrow historical context; researchers encountering lucrum in a document should not assume it refers to land unless surrounding context clearly indicates a conveyancing or property matter. The gain-and-profit meaning is far more common and better documented. These are not subtypes of a single concept — they are homonyms in legal Latin, and conflating them will produce misreadings.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter lucrum almost exclusively in one of two contexts: civil law texts discussing the intent element of theft, or isolated historical land records. The phrase lucri causa is the operationally important form. In civil law jurisdictions and treatises drawing on Roman law, lucri causa functions as the civil law equivalent of the common law concept of animus furandi — the felonious intent to deprive another of property for one's own gain. Understanding this equivalence is essential when reading mixed civil-common law sources, comparative law treatises, or early American legal writing that draws on both traditions.
The land-parcel definition is a research trap. Bouvier records it without context, citation, or elaboration, making it impossible to verify its scope or origin from the dictionary entry alone. Researchers working in early land records or conveyancing documents who encounter lucrum as a property designation should treat the Bouvier entry as a starting point only and seek corroboration in period-specific sources.
Neither definition will appear in modern statutory or case law under the Latin form. Lucrum as a term of art has been displaced in modern legal writing by plain-language equivalents — "gain," "profit," "benefit," and "intent to profit." It survives chiefly in scholarly and historical writing, in Roman law commentary, and in civil law jurisdictions that retain Latin terminology.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson and Bouvier record fundamentally different meanings without acknowledging each other's definitions, which itself signals that these are distinct usages rather than a unified concept with variants.
Anderson's entry is the more legally substantive. It connects lucrum to the intent element of theft — specifically the motivation of personal gain — and draws an explicit equivalence between lucri causa (civil law) and animus furandi (common law). This cross-tradition mapping is Anderson's most useful contribution and is consistent with how Roman and civil law scholars used the term. The entry appears cut off in the available text ("But re-"), suggesting Anderson may have continued with additional qualification or example that is not recoverable from the fragment.
Bouvier's entry is brief to the point of being cryptic: "a small slip or parcel of land" with no supporting authority, no historical context, and no indication of which legal system or time period the usage belongs to. This is characteristic of Bouvier's treatment of rare or archaic Latin terms, where entries sometimes reflect regional or period-specific usage that the dictionary preserves but does not explain. Researchers should not treat the Bouvier entry as authoritative for a broad proposition about the meaning of lucrum in property law.
The two dictionaries together confirm that lucrum is a polysemous Latin term whose legal meanings are context-dependent and tradition-dependent. Neither dictionary provides a comprehensive treatment.
Jurisdictional Note
The gain-and-profit meaning of lucrum, and the phrase lucri causa, are most relevant in civil law jurisdictions and in scholarship on Roman law. In common law jurisdictions, the equivalent concepts are expressed in English and the Latin form rarely appears in primary legal sources after the early modern period.