Definition
Latin. A part; a party. In legal usage, pars carries two distinct senses:
1. A PORTION OR PART. Pars denotes a fraction or constituent portion of something larger — a statute, a legal instrument, a quantity of land, or an estate. The term appears in numerous Latin maxims and compound phrases governing statutory construction and property division.
2. A PARTY TO A LEGAL PROCEEDING OR INSTRUMENT. Pars designates a party — to a deed, to an action, or to any formal legal proceeding. In this sense it is the root of English legal vocabulary built around "party" and "parties," and underlies compound Latin phrases still encountered in older English and American legal sources.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Pars as a standalone modern English word is not in common use. The Wiktionary entry for the capitalized form Pars identifies it as a proper noun — a historical region in southwestern Iran, the homeland of the Persians.
Historical common usage: Not a word in common English usage at any period; it is a Latin term of art.
Editorial note: The Wiktionary entry is irrelevant to legal usage. The legal pars is an uninflected Latin noun (pars, partis) meaning "part" or "party." Researchers encountering pars in historical legal materials should disregard any geographic or Persian-history connotation entirely.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
PARS ENITIA. In old English law, the share or privilege of the eldest daughter in a partition of lands by lot among coparceners. Where land descended to multiple daughters as coparceners, the eldest had a right of first choice in the allotment of portions.
PARS GRAVATA. In old practice, the party aggrieved; the party against whom a grievance or wrong was directed. Appears in older English reports and pleading contexts.
PARS PRO TOTO. A part standing for the whole. Used both as a rhetorical and legal description of situations where a partial designation represents an entire subject — for instance, a physical feature of a structure representing the whole structure.
Why It Matters in Research
Pars is a building block term, not typically a standalone operative legal concept. Its principal research value is in unlocking compound Latin phrases and maxims encountered in older case law, equity reports, and treatises — particularly English cases from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries and early American decisions drawing on English precedent.
The sense of pars as "party" underlies the familiar phrases ex parte (on behalf of one party; without notice to the other) and inter partes (between parties), both of which appear constantly in procedural law and retain active modern usage. Researchers working on ex parte applications, injunctions, and probate matters will encounter these forms regularly and must trace them back to pars to understand their literal and structural meaning.
The sense of pars as "part" generates a distinct family of maxims governing statutory and documentary construction. The Burrill entry preserves the most important: Nemo aliquam partem recte intelligere possit, antequam totum iterum atque iterum perlegerit (no one can rightly understand any part until he has read the whole through again and again) — a canon of construction cited in Coke's reports and applied to statutes and instruments alike. Parte quacunque integrante sublata, tollitur totum (any integral part being taken away, the whole is taken away) reflects the related principle of integral construction.
Researchers in property law may encounter pars enitia when examining coparcenary descent in historical common-law property disputes or in treatises on real property. It is rarely invoked in modern litigation but appears in older title chains and partition proceedings.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are consistent on the core meaning: Black's (both editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Anderson all define pars as "a part; a party," with Anderson usefully extending the entry to illustrate ex parte and inter partes usage in context. Burrill takes the most jurisprudentially serious approach, building the entry around two maxims from Coke's Reports that use pars as an interpretive concept — a reflection of Burrill's characteristic emphasis on maxims as primary legal authority.
Black's second edition adds the three compound phrases (pars enitia, pars gravata, pars pro toto) that the first edition omits, indicating their recognized place in the legal vocabulary by the time of the second edition but their lesser prominence earlier. None of the historical dictionaries treat pars as a term requiring extensive definition in its own right; it is primarily a gateway to derivative phrases. This is accurate — researchers should treat pars as a prefix and root rather than a standalone operative term.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
For the related concept of par value in corporate finance — where "par" functions as an English derivative of the same Latin root in the context of share issuance and stated capital — see: Corporate Finance: Capitalization, Par Value, and Stated Capital (The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia).