MOIETY

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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MOIETYAuthored
The Law Mind • 984 words
Definition
A moiety is one half of something — an undivided half-interest in property, an estate, or a penalty. In legal usage, the term is almost always precise: it means exactly one-half, not an approximate or indefinite share. 1. Property and estates: A moiety is each co-owner's equal half-share. The term appears most naturally in the context of joint tenancy, where each tenant is said to hold by moieties — meaning each has an equal, undivided half-interest in the whole. A testator who bequeaths "one moiety" of an estate to one beneficiary and "the other moiety" to another divides the estate equally between them. 2. Penalty and forfeiture (historical): In revenue, customs, and penal statutes, a moiety referred to one half of a fine or forfeiture allocated to a government informer as a reward for reporting violations. This usage gave rise to what were called "moiety acts."
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "A half. A share or portion, especially a smaller share." (Also used in anthropology for descent groups and in chemistry for molecular segments.) Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "One of two equal parts; a half... An indefinite part; a small part." The gap matters to researchers: ordinary English — even in 1913 — allowed "moiety" to mean a vague or small share, following Shakespeare's looser usage. Legal sources uniformly reject this imprecision. In law, a moiety is always exactly one-half. A document using "moiety" in a legal instrument should be read as meaning precisely half, not merely "a portion."
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Moiety Acts: Statutes — primarily revenue and customs laws — providing that one half of any fine or penalty collected would be paid to the informer who reported the violation. Anderson notes that the practice was formally abolished in the United States by the Act of June 22, 1874, which directed all fines into the Treasury and replaced the moiety system with discretionary informer compensation reported separately.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter "moiety" in two distinct and historically bounded contexts, and conflating them produces errors. In property documents and conveyancing, moiety language is a precision tool. When a deed or will divides an estate "by moieties," it signals equal shares — not shares determined by contribution, market value, or other formula. In joint tenancy analysis specifically, the phrase "hold by moieties" is a term of art distinguishing the equal undivided interest structure of joint tenancy from other co-ownership forms. In public law and statutory research, the moiety system is a discrete historical institution. It functioned as the dominant enforcement mechanism for federal customs and revenue laws through most of the nineteenth century, creating a bounty structure that incentivized informers and generated substantial litigation over who qualified as the triggering "informer" entitled to the half-penalty. The 1874 abolition is a hard chronological marker: moiety acts belong to pre-1874 federal statutory research. Post-1874 references to moieties in federal revenue contexts are either transitional, in error, or survive in state-law analogues. Trap for historical researchers: Because "moiety" could mean an indefinite share in literary and non-legal usage, older documents outside formal legal instruments may use it loosely. When evaluating whether a historical document's use of "moiety" is legally operative, context — deed, will, statute, correspondence — is determinative. Corpus connections: Moiety appears across property law, probate, co-tenancy, revenue law, and informer-reward doctrine. Researchers working on joint tenancy or tenancy in common will encounter it in foundational property texts. Researchers in nineteenth-century federal regulatory history will encounter it in customs enforcement records and the legislative history surrounding the 1874 reform.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries show strong agreement on the core definition: one-half, period. Burrill traces the term through Law French (moite, moitee, moyte) and Law Latin (medietas), grounding it in the medieval half. Bouvier illustrates the testamentary use cleanly. Littleton 125 is the common property-law citation across sources for the joint tenancy usage, and 3 C.B. 274 appears in both Black's editions for the same proposition. Where the sources diverge usefully: Black's 2nd edition is the only source to give "moiety acts" its own named sub-entry, signaling that by the time of that edition, the informer-reward usage had become significant enough to require separate treatment — even though the practice had already been abolished. Anderson goes furthest in historical specificity, identifying the 1874 Act and explaining its effect. Burrill's etymological detail is the most thorough on the linguistic lineage. What historical sources collectively miss: None of the dictionary sources addresses the risk of confusion with the literary or Shakespearean usage of moiety as an indefinite share, which was live in general English usage during the period covered by these dictionaries. This is a meaningful gap for researchers working with mixed legal and non-legal documents from the same era.
Jurisdictional Note
The property-law meaning of moiety is uniform across common-law jurisdictions. The moiety acts were a federal phenomenon in American law; some states maintained analogous informer-reward provisions in their own revenue and penal statutes, with varying abolition dates. English law used moiety language in customs enforcement contexts as well, predating American adoption of the model.
Related Terms
Joint tenancy — the primary property context in which "by moieties" appears Tenancy in common — the contrasting co-ownership form; compare how shares are described Entirety — Anderson cross-references; relevant to tenancy by the entirety where moiety language does not apply in the same way Partition — the proceeding that dissolves co-ownershipincluding moiety-based joint tenancy Informer — the party entitled to the moiety under moiety acts Forfeiture — the source pool from which the moiety was drawn in penal statutes Per my et per tout — the joint tenancy formula (each tenant holds everything and a half); conceptually paired with moiety analysis Undivided interest — the modern descriptive equivalent in property contexts
MOIETYmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
The half of anything. Joint tenants are said to hold by moieties. Litt. 125; 3 C. B. 274, 283.
MOIETYmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
tenants are said to hold by moieties. 125; 3 C. B. 274, 288. —Moiety acts. A name sometimes applied to nal and criminal statutes which provide that alf the penalty or fine sball inure to the benefit of the informer. The half of anything. Joint Litt.
MOIETYmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
A half; an undivided half. Joint tenants are said to hold by moieties. See PARTITION; ENTIRETY. Moieties, being half of the penalty or forfeiture, were formerly paid to informers under the laws forbidding smuggling. The act of June 22, 1874, abolished the practice, directed that all fines should be paid into the Treasury, and that whatever compensation might be due to informers should be reported to Congress for action. 10 A simple bequest of "money" will not carry securities. When it can be gathered from the will that the testator used the word in the sense of personal estate, that intention will be given effect.5 Power to coin and regulate the value of money is one of the ordinary prerogatives of sovereignty. The power is vested in the national government in order to produce uniformity of value and to prevent the embarrassment of a perpetually fluctuating medium.. Lawful money. “Lawful money of the United States" is lawful money of any State or Territory.7 11 Bl. Com. 276, 329; 2 id. 446; 3 id. 231; 2 Story, Const. § 1118. 2 Kennedy v. Briere, 45 Tex. 309 (1876), Moore, A. J.; Block v. State, 44 id. 622 (1876). 3 Klauber v. Biggerstaff, 47 Wis. 557 (1879), Ryan, Chief Justice. * Morris v. Edwards, 1 Ohio, 204 (1823). See also 2 Cranch, C. С. 43; 3 T. B. Mon. 166; 15 Pick. 173; 34 1 See 10 Wheat. 29; 9 Pet. 356; 14 id. 316; 16 id. 313; 1 Mich. 490; 6 N. J. L. 226; 5 Humph. 140; 71 Ala. 554. How. 306. 2 Hatch v. Moffitt, 15 F. R. 252 (1883). * State v. Fox, 25 N. J. L. 602 (1856). See R. S. § 4930. L. mod-e-rā'(or ră')-tě. Eng. mod'-er-ăte. The Elysia, 46 L. T. 840 (1882). 13 Pick. 491; 22 N. Y. 252; 59 Pa. 389. 8 Broom, Max. 459; Whart. Max. 259. F. moitié: L. medietatem, a half. 101 Sup. R. S. p. 77; United States v. Auffmordt, 19 F. R. 893, 898 (1884). * Glendenning v. Glendenning, 9 Beav. 324 (1846); Rogers v. Thomas, 2 Keen, *8 (1837); Dowson v. Gaskoin, ib. *14 (1837); Smith v. Davis, 1 Grant, 158 (1858); Paul v. Ball, 31 Tex. 10 (1868); Blood v. Fairbanks, 48 Cal. 171 (1874); Smith v. Burch, 92 N. Y. 231-34 (1883), cases; 2 Redf. Wills, 111, 437; Jarm. Wills, Ch. 24; 2 Williams, Ex. 1025. 2 Story, Const. § 1122; Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 602 (1870); 1 Bl. Com. 276. 7 Cocke v. Kendall, Hempst. 236 (1834); 1 Dall. *125, 175; 7 Wall. 247.
MOIETYn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
One of two equal parts; a half; as, a moiety of an estate, of goods, or of profits; the moiety of a jury, or of a nation. Shak. The more beautiful moiety of his majesty's subject. Addison. An indefinite part; a small part. Shak.
moietynoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A half. | A share or portion, especially a smaller share. | Each descent group in a culture which is divided exactly into two descent groups. | A specific segment of a molecule.

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