Definition
"Nos" appears in Anglo-American legal sources in two distinct senses:
1. ABBREVIATION AND PLEADING FORM. In older common-law practice, "nos" functions as a shorthand prefix or variant within compound Latin pleading terms, most notably in "non assumpsit infra sex annos" (he did not undertake within six years) — the formal name of the plea of the statute of limitations in actions of assumpsit — and "non accrevit infra sex annos" (it did not accrue within six years), the analogous plea for other forms of action barred after six years. The core function was to name the defendant's formal response when the plaintiff's claim was time-barred under the six-year limitation period.
2. SPANISH LAW. In Spanish legal usage, "Nos" denotes a special tribunal with jurisdiction over all matters relating to the post-office and roads — a specialized administrative court rather than a court of general jurisdiction. This usage appears in historical treatments of Spanish law and has no direct counterpart in the common-law tradition.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simple plural of "no."
Historical common usage: The plural form of the negative particle, used to record votes against a proposition or to enumerate negative responses.
Editorial note: The gap between common and legal meaning is almost total. In legal Latin pleading, "nos" is not a plural noun but a fragment of a formal plea name encoding a specific procedural defense. A researcher encountering "nos" in a historical pleading context should not read it as a vote count or a simple negative; it is a technical abbreviation pointing to a distinct doctrine.
Common Confusion
The abbreviation "nos" is easily conflated with "no." (number, plural "nos." or "nos") in legal citations and docket references, where it serves as a straightforward abbreviation for "numbers" — an entirely unrelated use. Context is decisive: "nos" in a pleading context signals a Latin limitation plea; "nos." in a citation context signals plural case or document numbers.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century common-law materials will encounter "nos" embedded in the full Latin plea name rather than standing alone. The critical research task is identifying which limitation plea is in play — assumpsit (non assumpsit infra sex annos) versus other personal actions (non accrevit infra sex annos) — because the procedural posture and available responses differed by writ type. Conflating the two can mislead analysis of how a limitations defense was raised and what it conceded or denied.
For researchers using the Law Mind corpus on Spanish law, the tribunal sense is largely historical and confined to treatises on Spanish or civil-law systems. It will not appear in common-law pleading records. Flag any source that uses "Nos" (capitalized) in a Spanish-law context as referring to this administrative body, not to a pleading term.
The Burrill entry is fragmentary in the source material available here, referencing the plaintiff's ability to recommence a new action — a standard consequence of a successful limitations plea resulting in nonsuit rather than a judgment on the merits. This procedural nuance matters: a nonsuit on limitations grounds did not bar refiling within a new limitations period in many historical jurisdictions.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries treat "nos" almost entirely as a handle for reproducing the Latin limitation pleas, not as a term requiring independent definition. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier agree on the Spanish tribunal meaning. Burrill's entry, as preserved, addresses the procedural aftermath of the limitations plea without defining the term itself.
What the dictionaries do not address: the gradual abolition of formal Latin plea names in the nineteenth century through pleading reform (Field Code and its successors), which rendered these plea names obsolete in American practice. A researcher using Black's or Bouvier's entries without this context might not realize that by the time those dictionaries were published, the formal plea names were already archaic in reformed-pleading jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional Note
The Latin plea forms bearing "nos" as a component were features of common-law pleading in England and in pre-code American jurisdictions. Code pleading states eliminated formal plea names beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The Spanish tribunal sense is confined to civil-law systems and has no American jurisdictional analog.