OBJECT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

OBJECTAuthored

The Law Mind • 1166 words

Definition

OBJECT carries distinct legal meanings depending on whether it functions as a noun or a verb.

As a noun (the object of a legal act, instrument, or proceeding): The thing, purpose, or end toward which a legal act is directed. Courts and treatises use "object" to mean the subject matter or aim of a contract, will, statute, or legal proceeding — what it operates upon or is designed to achieve. A contract's object is the thing to be done or forborne; a statute's object is the legislative purpose it pursues; the object of a trust is what the trust is designed to accomplish.

As a noun (in evidence and procedure — a physical object): A tangible, physical item offered or considered in a legal proceeding. Physical or "real" evidence — a weapon, document, or any material thing — is sometimes described as an object in the sense of a thing perceived by the senses, as distinguished from testimonial evidence.

As a verb (to object): To raise a formal opposition in a legal proceeding. A party objects to testimony, evidence, or conduct when asserting that it is improper, inadmissible, or legally deficient. The objection must typically be timely and specific to preserve the issue for appeal. Failure to object generally waives the challenge.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A thing with physical existence but not alive; a goal or purpose; the grammatical complement of a transitive verb.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To set before or against; to bring into opposition; to oppose; to offer in opposition as a charge or reproach.

The everyday sense of "object" spans both a physical thing and a goal or aim. Legal usage imports both senses but adds procedural precision. When a lawyer objects in court, the act is formal and rule-governed, not merely conversational disagreement. When courts speak of the "object" of a contract or statute, they mean something closer to legal purpose or operative aim — a term of art with interpretive consequences — not simply a physical thing or a vague intention.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Object of a contract: The specific performance, act, or forbearance the contract is designed to secure. Courts examining illegality, impossibility, or frustration often focus on whether the contract's object has failed or become unlawful.

Object of a statute: The legislative end or purpose. Rules of statutory construction frequently require courts to identify the statute's object in order to resolve ambiguity.

Object of a trust: The purpose for which a trust is created, or the beneficiaries or class it is intended to benefit.

Physical object (real evidence): A tangible item introduced or considered as evidence, distinct from documentary or testimonial evidence.

Objection (procedural): A formal challenge interposed during litigation — at trial, in deposition, or in administrative proceedings — asserting that a question, answer, exhibit, or course of conduct is improper under applicable rules.

Why It Matters in Research

The noun and verb senses of OBJECT appear across virtually every area of law, and conflating them produces research confusion. When searching historical sources for the "object" of a contract or statute, researchers are looking at interpretive and substantive doctrine; when searching for "objection" practice, they are in procedural territory. Historical indices rarely separate these cleanly.

In older cases and treatises, "object" in the sense of a contract's subject matter or purpose overlaps heavily with "consideration," "subject matter," and "cause" — a family of terms that differ in civilian and common-law traditions and that Bouvier himself treats with varying precision across editions. Researchers working in pre-20th-century contract materials should treat "object" and "subject matter" as potentially interchangeable and cross-search both.

For procedural objections, the critical research trap is preservation. Modern appellate practice turns heavily on whether, when, and how an objection was made below. Historical materials are often less systematic about this requirement. Searching for objection doctrine in equity courts, for instance, will yield different rules than common-law trial practice from the same period.

In probate and fiduciary proceedings, "objections to accountings" or "objections to fiduciary conduct" are a distinct procedural mechanism — closer to a formal pleading than a trial objection — and are treated as such in the encyclopedia materials.

The Bouvier entry leans toward the cognitive and philosophical dimension of "object" (drawing on the Century Dictionary) and notes the term's breadth: whatever may be presented to the mind or acted upon. This is useful for understanding how 19th-century courts framed the "object" of a legal instrument but offers little guidance on procedural objections, which were governed by practice manuals rather than definition.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's entry is notably philosophical in character, tracing "object" to its epistemological sense — that toward which a cognitive act is directed — and citing the Century Dictionary rather than legal precedent for the core definition. This reflects the 19th-century habit of grounding legal vocabulary in general dictionary usage before working toward legal application. The citation to 8 Blatchford 257 grounds the broader usage in federal circuit practice, and the note that "object" may carry the sense of "effect" (citing 3 Washington) reminds researchers that early American courts used the term loosely as a near-synonym for result or consequence.

What Bouvier does not address is the procedural verb sense — the act of objecting in court. That usage, by Bouvier's era well established in practice, was treated as too obvious to define or was covered under separate entries for specific objection types (e.g., objection to evidence, objection to pleading). Researchers relying solely on historical dictionaries for this sense will find them largely silent.

Modern legal dictionaries have expanded coverage of objection procedure but have, if anything, become less precise about the noun sense — particularly the object of a statute or instrument — as textualism and purposivism debates have pushed that analysis into constitutional and statutory interpretation scholarship rather than dictionary definitions.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Contested Accountings and Objections to Fiduciary Conduct (The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia) — covers formal objections in probate proceedings as a distinct procedural mechanism.

Discharge — Impossibility of Performance (Objective Impossibility) (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia) — addresses how failure or destruction of a contract's object operates as a discharge doctrine.

OBJECTmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

That which is perceived, known, thought of, or signified; that toward which a cognitive act is directed. Cent. Dict. The term includes whatever may be presented to the mind as well as to the senses; whatever also is acted upon or operated upon affirmatively or intentionally influenced by anything done, moved, or applied thereto; 8 Blatchf. 257; it may.be used as having the sense of effect; 3 Wash. Ter. 131; and for all practical purposes the words subject and object are synonymous; id. But the subject of action cannot be the object of action; the latter is the remedy demanded, the relief prayed for, and is no part of the subject of action or the causes of action; 18 Kan. 406.

OBJECTv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To set before or against; to bring into opposition; to oppose. [Obs.] Of less account some knight thereto object, Whose loss so great and harmful can not prove. Fairfax. Some strong impediment or other objecting itself. Hooker. Pallas to their eyes The mist objected, and condensed the skies. Pope. To offer in opposition as a criminal charge or by way of accusation or reproach; to adduce as an objection or adverse reason. He gave to him to object his heinous crime. Spencer. Others object the poverty of the nation. Addison. The book ... giveth liberty to object any crime against such as are to be ordered. Whitgift.

OBJECTv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To make opposition in words or argument; -- usually followed by to. Sir. T. More.

OBJECTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

That which is put, or which may be regarded as put, in the way of some of the senses; something visible or tangible; as, he observed an object in the distance; all the objects in sight; he touched a strange object in the dark. That which is set, or which may be regarded as set, before the mind so as to be apprehended or known; that of which the mind by any of its activities takes cognizance, whether a thing external in space or a conception formed by the mind itself; as, an object of knowledge, wonder, fear, thought, study, etc. Object is a term for that about which the knowing subject is conversant; what the schoolmen have styled the "materia circa quam." Sir. W. Hamilton. The object of their bitterest hatred. Macaulay. That by which the mind, or any of its activities, is directed; that on which the purpose are fixed as the end of action or effort; that which is sought for; end; aim; motive; final cause. Object, beside its proper signification, came to be abusively applied to denote motive, end, final cause.... This innovation was probably borrowed from the French. Sir. W. Hamilton. Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. D. Webster. Sight; show; appearance; aspect. [Obs.] Shak. He, advancing close Up to the lake, past all the rest, arose In glorious object. Chapman. A word, phrase, or clause toward which an action is directed, or is considered to be directed; as, the object of a transitive verb. Object glass, the lens, or system of lenses, placed at the end of a telescope, microscope, etc., which is toward the object. Its office is to form an image of the object, which is then viewed by the eyepiece. Called also objective. See Illust. of Microscope.  -- Object lesson, a lesson in which object teaching is made use of.  -- Object staff. (Leveling) Same as Leveling staff.  -- Object teaching, a method of instruction, in which illustrative objects are employed, each new word or idea being accompanied by a representation of that which it signifies; -- used especially in the kindergarten, for young children.

objectnoun

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 thing that has physical existence but is not alive. | Objective; goal, end or purpose of something. | The noun phrase which is an internal complement of a verb phrase or a prepositional phrase. In a verb phrase with a transitive action verb, it is typically the receiver of the action. | A person or thing toward which an emotion is directed. | A person or thing toward which an emotion is directed. | A cause for attention or concern. | An instantiation of a class or structure. | An instance of one of the two kinds of entities that form a category, the other kind being the arrows (also called morphisms). | Sight; show; appearance; aspect.

objectverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To disagree with or oppose something or someone; (especially in a Court of Law) to raise an objection. | To offer in opposition as a criminal charge or by way of accusation or reproach; to adduce as an objection or adverse reason. | To set before or against; to bring into opposition; to oppose.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In