OMITTANCE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

OMITTANCEAuthored

The Law Mind • 613 words

Definition

Omittance is an archaic legal term signifying forbearance or omission — the act of leaving something undone, passing over an act, or deliberately refraining from action. In legal usage, it carries the sense of a failure or refusal to act, and is roughly synonymous with omission as applied to legal duties or obligations.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of omitting something; omission.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of omitting, or the state of being omitted; forbearance; neglect.

The common and legal meanings are closely aligned, but legal usage emphasizes the volitional element — deliberate forbearance — rather than mere accidental neglect. Where common speech treats omittance as any failure to include or perform, legal sources stress that the omission may carry consequence when a duty to act exists.

Common Confusion

Omittance and omission are functionally interchangeable in historical legal writing, and neither Black's nor Rapalje & Lawrence draw a technical distinction between them. Researchers should not read significance into an author's choice of one word over the other. Omittance appears far less frequently in modern legal texts and has been almost entirely displaced by omission in contemporary usage.

Why It Matters in Research

Omittance is largely a period term. Researchers encountering it in historical legal sources — particularly in English common law materials predating the nineteenth century — should treat it as a stylistic variant of omission rather than a term of art with independent legal weight. Its presence in a source does not signal a distinct legal doctrine.

The word appears in older pleadings, treatises, and judicial opinions as a synonym for forbearance. When Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence define omittance, both immediately pivot to maxims about intent and the relationship between will and wrongdoing — a signal that the term was understood in context as part of the broader discussion of culpable inaction, not as a freestanding concept requiring its own doctrine.

Researchers working in criminal law history should note that the surrounding maxims in both dictionary entries (particularly those linking intent to culpability) situate omittance within the classical framework connecting mens rea to omissions. This context is useful for understanding how courts historically treated failure-to-act questions.

In corpus research, searches for omittance in historical materials will underperform relative to searches for omission. Expect low frequency after roughly 1850 in American legal texts. If researching the doctrine of omissions liability or a duty-to-act question in historical sources, cast searches broadly to capture both terms.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence give identical treatment: both define omittance solely as "forbearance; omission," and both immediately follow the definition with the same Latin maxims. This is not coincidental — the maxims were standard pedagogical apparatus in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries, illustrating how intention governed the legal evaluation of both acts and omissions. Neither source provides a substantive doctrinal treatment of omittance itself.

Neither dictionary distinguishes omittance from omission, and neither assigns omittance to a specific area of law. The brevity of both entries confirms that the term was understood as ordinary vocabulary rather than technical terminology requiring extended explanation. Historical sources outside the dictionary tradition — treatises on criminal law, pleading manuals, equity texts — use omission far more consistently.

Webster's 1913 captures the word's meaning accurately: the act or state of omitting, with a connotation of neglect or forbearance. The legal dictionaries add nothing beyond that ordinary meaning, which is itself a useful data point for researchers assessing whether a historical author intended a term of art or plain description.

OMITTANCEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Forbearance; omission. Omne actum ab intentione agentis est judicandum. Every act is to be judged by the intention of the door. Branch, Princ. Omne crimen ebrietas et incendit et detegit. Drunkenness both inflames (or ag- gravates) and reveals every crime. Co. Litt. 247a; 4 Bl. Comm. 26; Broom, Max. 17. Omne jus aut consensus fecit, aut necessitas constituit aut firmavit con- suetudo. Every right is either made by consent, or is constituted by necessity, or is established by custom. Dig. 1, 3, 40. Omne magis dignum trahit ad se mi. nus dignum, quamvis minus dignum sit antiquius. Every worthier thing draws to it the less worthy, though the less worthy be the more ancient. Co. Litt. 3556. Omne magnum exemplum habet ali- quid ex iniquo, quod publica utilitate compensatur. Hob. 279. Every great ex- ample has some portion of evil, which is com- pensated by the public utility. Omne majus continet in se minus. Every greater contains in itself the less. 5 Coke, 115a. The greater always contains the less. Broom, Max. 174. Omne majus dignum continet in se minus dignum. Co. Litt. 43. The more worthy contains in itself the less worthy. Omne majus minus in se complectitur. Every greater embraces in itself the less. Jenk. Cent. 208. Omne principale trahit ad se accesso- rium. Every principal thing draws to itself the accessory. 17 Mass. 425; 1 Johns. 580. Omne quod solo inædificatur solo cedit. Everything which is built upon the soil belongs to the soil. Dig. 47, 3, 1; Broom, Max. 401. Omne sacramentum debet esse de certa scientia. Every oath ought to be of certain knowledge. 4 Inst. 279. Omne testamentum morte consum- matum est. 8 Coke, 29. Every will is com- pleted by death. N OMNES ACTIONES, ETC. Omnes actiones in mundo' infra certa tempora kabent limitationem. All actions in the world are limited within certain peri- ods. Bract. fol. 52. Omnes homines aut liberi sunt aut servi. All men are freemen or slaves. Inst. 1, 3, pr.; Fleta, 1. 1, c. 1, § 2. Omnes licentiam habere his quæ pro se indulta sunt, renunciare. [It is a rule of the ancient law that] all persons shall have liberty to renounce those privileges which have been conferred for their benefit. Cod. 1, 3, 51; Id. 2, 3, 29; Broom, Max. 699. Omnes prudentes illa admittere solent quæ probantur iis qui in arte sua bene versati sunt. All prudent men are accustomed to admit those things which are approved by those who are well versed in the art. 7 Coke, 19. Omnes sorores sunt quasi unus hæres de una hæreditate. Co. Litt. 67. All sis- ters are, as it were, one heir to one inherit- ance.

OMITTANCEmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

- Forbearance. Omne actum ab intentione agentis est judicandum; a voluntate procedit causa vitii atque virtutis (Jur. Civ.) Every act is to be estimated by the intention of the doer; the cause of vice and virtue proceeds from the will. Omne crimen ebrietas et incendit et detegit (Co. Litt. 247): Drunkenness both kindles and uncovers every crime.

OMITTANCEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of omitting, or the state of being omitted; forbearance; neglect. Shak.

omittancenoun

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.

The act of omitting something; omission.

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