Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to delay, to pause, or to rest. The term appears in legal instruments and records to signify a period of waiting, a halt in proceedings, or a deliberate forbearance from action. It is most commonly encountered in the phrase *moratur in lege* (he delays, or rests, in the law), indicating that a party is relying on a legal objection or standing upon a point of law rather than proceeding substantively.
Common Confusion
Researchers should not conflate *morari* (to delay or pause, typically a procedural posture) with *mora* (delay as a legal condition giving rise to consequences, particularly in civil law contexts regarding default in performance of an obligation). The two share a Latin root and a general sense of delay, but *mora* developed into a substantive doctrine — especially in civil law and Scots law — while *morari* remained a descriptive term for procedural pausing in English records. Searching for one in historical sources will not reliably surface the other.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter *morari* almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal records — plea rolls, Year Books, and Latin-form writs — rather than in modern case law or statutory materials. Its presence in a document typically signals a procedural moment: a party has paused the action, often by interposing a demurrer or similar legal objection, rather than answering on the merits.
The critical navigational point is the phrase *moratur in lege*. When a historical record uses this construction, it is effectively the Latin equivalent of what later common law pleading would call a demurrer — the party is saying, in effect, that the opponent's pleading is legally deficient and that no further factual response is needed. Researchers connecting medieval Latin records to later English pleading doctrine should treat *moratur in lege* as a functional precursor to the formal demurrer and follow that thread into treatises on common law pleading.
Because *morari* is a verb form rather than a noun or fixed legal term of art, it can appear in varied grammatical constructions across archival sources. Researchers working in Latin legal manuscripts should be alert to conjugated forms (*moratur*, third-person singular present, being the most common) and not limit searches to the infinitive alone.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry, defining *morari* as meaning "to delay; to pause or rest" and placing it squarely in old English law, with the entry trailing into the phrase *moratur in lege* — suggesting that the principal practical significance of the term lay in that constructed phrase rather than in the bare infinitive. Burrill's entry is brief, consistent with the term's function as a grammatical building block within a larger legal expression rather than a standalone doctrine.
No other shelf sources in the Law Mind corpus provide independent entries for *morari*, which itself reflects the term's status: it is a functional Latin word rather than a defined legal concept requiring extended treatment. The absence of fuller treatment in later dictionaries confirms that the term had no meaningful migration into English-language legal vocabulary after Latin pleading forms fell out of use.