Definition
In legal drafting and document interpretation, "mentioned" means referred to or cited within the same instrument, pleading, or record. When used in phrases such as "above-mentioned," "before-mentioned," or "hereinbefore mentioned," it signals a cross-reference to content appearing earlier in the same document. The term carries no independent legal significance on its own; its weight derives from its function as a locating or incorporating device within the text.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simple past and past participle of "mention" — to refer to something briefly or in passing.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To make mention of; to refer to briefly; to name or specify.
The gap between common and legal usage is narrow but worth noting. In ordinary speech, "mentioned" is casual and incidental. In legal instruments, the term is deliberate and operative — "the above-mentioned property" or "the parties mentioned herein" identifies a specific antecedent with the same precision as a defined term. A casual reader may skim past it; a legal reader treats it as a pointer carrying substantive weight.
Common Confusion
"Mentioned" is sometimes used interchangeably with "described," "specified," or "referred to" in older instruments, which can create interpretive ambiguity. Unlike "described," which implies a fuller characterization, "mentioned" technically requires only that the subject was named or identified somewhere in the document. In cases of dispute over what is incorporated by reference, courts have distinguished between items that are merely mentioned and those that are fully described or incorporated.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of this term lies in document interpretation and drafting history. When reviewing historical deeds, wills, contracts, or pleadings, "mentioned" functions as an internal cross-reference — tracing what it refers to requires reading the document as a whole, not in isolation. Researchers working with early American or English legal instruments should be alert to the scroll-era convention underlying Black's definition: "above-mentioned" literally meant higher on the physical roll of parchment, a spatial metaphor that hardened into a drafting formula.
In corpus research, "mentioned" most often appears as a modifier in compound forms: "above-mentioned," "before-mentioned," "undermentioned," "last-mentioned." Each of these has a slightly different positional implication. "Undermentioned" (referring to content below) is common in British legal documents but rare in American practice, a jurisdictional divergence worth tracking when researching across traditions.
Researchers should also watch for "mentioned" in the context of incorporation by reference disputes. Whether a document is sufficiently "mentioned" to be incorporated into another instrument is a recurring interpretive question in contracts, wills, and trust instruments. The bare word "mentioned" may not satisfy modern standards for incorporation, which typically require that the incorporated document be identified with reasonable certainty.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary treats "mentioned" not as an independent term but through its directional compound forms. The entry draws on the Encyclopaedia Londinensis to explain the figurative origin: ancient legal scribes wrote on scrolls, so anything cited earlier in the text was physically above — hence "above-mentioned" described literal position on the roll before it became a formulaic expression. Black's does not develop a formal legal definition beyond this etymological note, treating the term as self-explanatory in context.
This is a case where historical dictionaries offer origin but not doctrine. The interpretive significance of "mentioned" — what it incorporates, what it excludes, how courts read it — is developed in case law and treatise commentary rather than dictionary definitions. Researchers should not expect dictionary sources alone to resolve interpretive disputes about whether something is sufficiently "mentioned" to be legally operative.
Jurisdictional Note
American legal drafting favors "above-mentioned" and "hereinbefore mentioned" while British practice also uses "undermentioned" and "hereafter mentioned" more freely. In civil law-influenced jurisdictions, equivalent terms in translated instruments may carry subtly different referential conventions. When researching across common law and civil law traditions, confirm that directional cross-reference terms are being read in their drafting-culture context.