Definition
In legal usage, "opposite" carries two distinct but related senses:
1. As an adjective: Situated over against or facing; on the other side. Used in property descriptions, boundary disputes, and conveyancing instruments to indicate position relative to a fixed point or line.
2. As a noun (archaic): An opponent or adverse party. In older pleading and practice literature, "opposite" functioned as a synonym for "opponent" — the party on the other side of a legal controversy.
The second sense is largely obsolete in modern legal writing, having been displaced by more precise terminology such as "adverse party," "opponent," or "opposing counsel."
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Something contrary or entirely different from another; a person or thing that is the reverse of another; an antonym; an opponent.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Placed over against; facing; extremely different or repugnant; contrary; antagonistic.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but worth noting. The ordinary sense of "opposite" as a general antonym or contrast word is far broader than its specific legal uses. In legal instruments — particularly property descriptions and boundary metes — "opposite" carries precise spatial meaning that courts have been asked to construe technically, not loosely. The casual sense of "entirely different" does not translate to legal doctrine. The archaic noun sense (opponent) is unknown in modern common speech entirely.
Common Confusion
"Opposite" in old reports and digests may be misread as merely descriptive where it actually functions as a party designation — i.e., as a reference to the opponent in the proceeding. Researchers encountering phrases such as "the opposite contended" or "judgment against the opposite" in older English or American reports should treat "the opposite" as shorthand for "the opposing party," not as an adjective modifying an unstated noun. Anderson's Dictionary of Law signals this explicitly by redirecting to ADVERSE and PARTY.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research relevance of "opposite" falls into two areas:
Property and boundary research: When reading early deeds, surveys, and conveyancing instruments, "opposite to" introduces a locational reference. Courts have been called upon to determine what point, line, or structure the term is measured against, and whether "opposite" implies direct perpendicular alignment or merely general proximity. The Maine Supreme Court addressed this spatial question directly (58 Me. 360), and Pennsylvania reporters contain similar construction disputes (15 Atl. Rep. 706). Researchers working with pre-20th century land records should not treat "opposite" as self-defining.
Archaic party terminology: Researchers in English Chancery materials and early American equity practice will encounter "the opposite" used as a noun party designation. This usage is flagged by Bouvier (citing R. & L. Dict.) and echoed by both editions of Black's. It appears in digests, indices, and headnotes of older reports where space and convention favored compressed party references. Failing to recognize this usage leads to syntactic confusion when parsing older procedural passages.
Neither use generates a substantial body of modern case law under the term itself — "opposite" does not function as a legal term of art that organizes doctrine. Its significance is interpretive and navigational rather than substantive.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are remarkably consistent and brief. Both editions of Black's note only that "opposite" is "an old word for opponent" — a one-line entry that signals obsolescence without elaboration. Anderson's dispenses with a definition entirely and redirects the researcher to ADVERSE and PARTY, a practical acknowledgment that the term's legal work is better done by those entries. Bouvier is the most informative, adding the spatial sense ("over against, standing in front or facing") with three case citations, and confirming the archaic synonym sense with attribution to R. & L. Dict. (presumably Robinson & Lumsden's Law Dictionary).
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any treatment of the interpretive disputes that arose in property law over the precise spatial meaning of "opposite to" in boundary descriptions. The case citations in Bouvier gesture at this without discussion. Researchers needing doctrine on that point must go to case law directly rather than relying on dictionary synthesis.
Jurisdictional Note
The spatial interpretation of "opposite" in deed descriptions has generated case law primarily in state courts handling property boundary disputes, with no uniform national rule. Early Maine and Pennsylvania decisions are the most-cited in the historical sources. Equity practice using "opposite" as a party noun was predominantly an English Chancery convention that carried into early American federal and state equity courts but did not persist after the merger of law and equity.