Definition
Property or things capable of being moved from place to place, as distinguished from immovable or real property fixed to land. In legal usage, "movable" functions both as an adjective and as a noun (often pluralized as "movables"), referring to a category of property that travels with a person rather than remaining attached to a particular location.
1. Movable property (movables): Tangible personal property capable of physical relocation — goods, chattels, livestock, furniture, and similar items. In civil law systems and private international law, movables are the counterpart to immovables (land and things permanently attached to it). The distinction governs which jurisdiction's law controls the property and how it passes at death or through contract.
2. Movable feasts or terms: Days or periods that do not fall on a fixed calendar date but shift from year to year according to a formula. Easter and the legal terms historically set by reference to it are the classic examples.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Capable of being moved, lifted, carried, or conveyed; not fixed or stationary. Also: changing from one time to another.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Capable of being moved in any way so as to change place or posture; susceptible of motion; not fixed or stationary. Also applied to things that change from one time to another, such as movable feasts whose dates vary year to year.
The common meaning and the legal meaning overlap substantially but part ways in a critical way: ordinary usage treats "movable" as purely a physical description, while legal usage treats it as a classificatory term with significant consequences for choice of law, succession, and taxation. A fence post can be physically unmovable and still qualify as a "movable" in some legal contexts, while an elaborate built-in fixture may be immovable even if it could theoretically be disassembled. The legal category is not simply a physical fact but a doctrinal assignment.
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Common Confusion
Movable vs. Personal Property: In common law systems, "movable" and "personal property" are often used interchangeably, but they are not identical. "Personal property" is the common law term; "movable" is the civil law and private international law term. When working across legal systems — particularly in conflict of laws, international succession, or comparative law — the two frameworks do not map perfectly. Some things classified as personal property under common law may be treated differently under civil law regimes that apply distinct movable/immovable rules.
Movable vs. Chattel: "Chattel" is a narrower term typically confined to tangible personal property. "Movable" in civil law usage can extend to some intangibles and to property rights that are not fixed to land. In historical sources, the terms appear in overlapping but distinct contexts.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Corporeal movables: Physical, tangible items — goods, livestock, currency, furniture.
Incorporeal movables: Rights and interests not attached to land — shares, debts, intellectual property rights — recognized as movables in civil law systems because they do not inhere in immovable property.
Movable feasts: Calendar days fixed by ecclesiastical or legal formula that shift annually. In English legal history, court terms were sometimes set by reference to movable feasts, creating complexity in calculating procedural deadlines in historical records.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term's importance is almost entirely jurisdictional and systemic. In common law research, "movable" appears less often than "personal property" or "chattel," but it becomes dominant in three research contexts:
Conflict of laws: The movable/immovable distinction is the foundational classification in private international law for determining which country's or state's law governs property. The rule — immovables are governed by the law of the situs, movables by the law of the domicile — is ancient and pervasive. Researchers working on cross-border estates, international commercial disputes, or choice-of-law problems must master this distinction as it appears in historical and modern authority.
Civil law sources: Louisiana, Quebec, and other civil law jurisdictions use "movable" and "immovable" as primary statutory categories. Louisiana's Civil Code classifies property in these terms explicitly. Researchers crossing between common law and civil law materials must recognize that the vocabulary shifts even when the underlying assets are the same.
Historical court terms: English and early American legal records reference "movable terms" or "movable feasts" as anchors for procedural deadlines. Researchers dating historical filings or calculating limitation periods in pre-standardized calendar courts must understand what feast day a term was keyed to and how that date fell in the particular year at issue.
Trap for researchers: The second edition entry in the source material is misattributed — it contains a fragment about "motion in error," not a definition of "movable." This is a transcription anomaly. Do not rely on that passage for any proposition about movables.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st Ed.) captures both meanings concisely: property changeable in place, and times changeable in date. This is accurate as far as it goes but does not develop the movable/immovable distinction as it functions in conflicts of law or civil law systems — arguably the term's most important legal application. Neither historical entry addresses the incorporeal movable category recognized in civil law, nor the domicile-of-owner choice-of-law rule that makes the classification consequential.
The Webster's 1913 and legal dictionary entries converge on the physical and temporal senses, but diverge in that legal usage has generated a formal classificatory framework that ordinary usage does not require. Historical dictionaries treat "movable" descriptively; legal usage treats it prescriptively.
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Jurisdictional Note
Louisiana and other civil law jurisdictions use "movable" as a primary statutory classification with detailed rules distinguishing corporeal from incorporeal movables. Common law jurisdictions generally prefer "personal property" but employ "movable" in conflicts of law analysis. International instruments — including the Hague Conventions on succession and matrimonial property — use movable/immovable as their organizing vocabulary, making the term essential in any research touching cross-border legal problems.
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