NUY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

NUYAuthored

The Law Mind • 399 words

Definition

"Nuy" does not appear to be a recognized standalone legal term. The source material attributed to this entry in Burrill's Law Dictionary is fragmentary text belonging to adjacent entries — specifically, partial text from entries on nuncupative wills and the term "nuncius" (a messenger or excuse-bearer in English practice). No coherent independent definition for "nuy" is recoverable from the available source material.

This appears to be either a digitization artifact, an indexing error, or a corrupt entry produced by optical character recognition of a historical law dictionary page.

Common Confusion

"Nuy" should not be confused with any legitimate legal term. It is most likely a ghost entry generated by digitization error. Researchers should redirect to:

— NUNCIUS: the messenger or proxy-excuse figure referenced in the fragment
— NUNCUPATIVE WILL: the oral will form referenced in the same fragment
— NUL: a genuine term of art (meaning "none" or "no," as in nul tiel record)

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering "nuy" in a legal index, database search result, or digitized historical source should treat it as a probable OCR or transcription error. Historical law dictionaries were frequently digitized from degraded print editions, and page fragments, running headers, or typographical ligatures can generate false headwords that do not correspond to any actual legal term.

If you arrived here through a corpus search, consider whether the underlying document intended "nisi," "nul," "nullity," "nun," or "nuncius" — all terms appearing in proximity to this fragment in Burrill's alphabetical arrangement. The fragment in the source material references nuncupative wills and a messenger-figure in English practice, suggesting the surrounding page covered terms in the "NUN–" range.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary, the sole source for this entry, provides no usable definition under "nuy." The text fragment assigned to this headword is plainly misattributed — it describes nuncupative wills (informal oral wills derived from civil law tradition, abolished in England by 1 Vict. c. 26, § 9, with a military exception) and a figure described as a messenger who appeared on behalf of a summoned party to explain their absence, characterized as acting quasi pro amico (as if for a friend). Both concepts belong to adjacent, identifiable entries. No historical dictionary on the Law Mind shelf independently supports "nuy" as a term of art.

NUYmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870

(252) written will.* 2 Bl. Com. 500. A term English practice. A messenger. One who derived from the civil law. See Nuncupare. was sent to make an excuse for a party Nuncupative wills have been recently summoned, or one who explained as for a abolished in England, by statute 1 Vict. friend (quasi pro amico,) the reason of a c. 26, § 9, with an exception in the case of soldiers in actual military service, and mariners and seamen at sea. Id. § 11. See 1 Williams on Exec. 96. This is in accordance with the present law in NewYork. 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat. [60,] 4, § 22. As to the law in other states, see 1 Jarman on Wills, (Perkins' ed. 1849,) 130, 131, notes. United States Digest, Will. Nuncupative wills have never been regarded with favor by the courts, and when they are allowed, much greater strictness is required in the proof of them than in the proof of written wills. See 27 Mississippi R. 119.