PLIFICATION

2 definitions found across Law Mind sources

← Dictionary
PLIFICATIONAuthored
The Law Mind • 665 words
Definition
Plification is an archaic legal term, found in older English and American practice, referring to an authenticated or certified copy of a public document, particularly one produced under official seal or by a court officer as evidence of the original's contents. The term is most closely associated with the practice of producing exemplifications — formally certified transcripts of court records, judgments, or public instruments — for use as evidence in proceedings, especially in courts other than those where the original record was kept. The word functions as a variant or abbreviated form of EXEMPLIFICATION, and its appearance in legal sources is almost always a product of scribal abbreviation, typographical convention in older print, or manuscript shorthand rather than an independently established term of art. ---
Common Confusion
PLIFICATION vs. EXEMPLIFICATION: In historical legal manuscripts and early printed sources, "plification" appears as a contracted form of "exemplification," arising from dropped initial syllables in handwritten or typeset text. Researchers encountering "plification" in primary sources should treat it as functionally synonymous with exemplification — a certified copy of a public record authenticated under seal for evidentiary use. It does not carry a distinct legal meaning of its own. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century court records, chancery proceedings, or colonial-era documents may encounter "plification" as an artifact of manuscript abbreviation or compositor error in early print. The risk is misreading the term as a standalone concept and failing to locate the relevant doctrine under its proper headword, EXEMPLIFICATION. When searching Law Mind corpus sources for this term, redirect immediately to EXEMPLIFICATION and its cognates. Rapalje and Lawrence's treatment of document types and authentication — including the passage on public versus private documents and the significance of probate in converting a will into a public record — provides the surrounding doctrinal context: the legal weight of a plification or exemplification depends entirely on whether the underlying instrument qualifies as a public document susceptible of official certification. The passage excerpted in the source material, while not defining plification directly, situates the term in a framework where the distinction between public and private documents controls what kind of authenticated copy carries evidentiary force. A plification of a private deed would not have the same standing as a plification of a court judgment or a proved will. Historical corpus searches should therefore run in parallel: query for "plification," "exemplification," and "certified copy" together, and cross-check against entries for ANCIENT WRITINGS, PROBATE, and DOCUMENT OF TITLE, all of which appear in the Rapalje & Lawrence vicinity and define the landscape of documentary evidence within which this term operates. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje and Lawrence do not define "plification" as a standalone term. The surrounding passage treats the broader category of documents, distinguishing public from private instruments and noting the evidentiary significance of probate in elevating a will to public document status. The reference to documents of title — instruments enabling the possessor to deal with property as owner — further frames the context in which authenticated copies would be produced and relied upon. No historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus treats "plification" as an independent headword. Its appearance is consistently incidental, and the substantive doctrine resides under EXEMPLIFICATION in every major legal dictionary of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ---
Related Terms
EXEMPLIFICATION — the parent term; a formally certified copy of a public record produced under seal CERTIFIED COPY — the modern functional equivalent ANCIENT WRITINGS — documents that authenticate themselves by age and custodya related evidentiary category treated by Rapalje & Lawrence PROBATE — the process by which a will becomes a public document and thus susceptible of exemplification DOCUMENT OF TITLE — a related category in the Rapalje & Lawrence documentary framework PUBLIC DOCUMENT — the class of instruments from which plifications are properly drawn AUTHENTICATION — the broader evidentiary process of which plification is a species
PLIFICATIONmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888
4. Private documents include deeds, wills, agreements and the like. Of course when a will has been proved, it becomes a public document. (See PROBATE.) As to private documents which prove themselves, see ANCIENT WRITINGS. 15. A document of title is a document which enables the possessor to deal with the property described in it as if he were the owner. In this way a bill of lading represents the goods while they are at sea, and by it, when the goods arrive at the port of destination, the possession of the goods may be obtained (Gunn v. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., L. R. 10 Ch 502,) either by the person to whom the bill of lading was originally given, or by a person to whom he has transferred it, which he may do absolutely or by way of charge, &c. Some documents of title (as in the case of a bill of lading) pass the ownership of the goods represented by them, while others, such as delivery orders and dock warrants (q. v.), are mere authorities to obtain delivery of them. See Benj. Sales 673. See, also, NEGOTIABLE. (when killing justified). 9 Johns. (N. Y.) 233; 13 Id. 312.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In
The Law Mind Legal Dictionary. This is a legal research library, not a lawyer.
Dictionary • Encyclopedia • Sign In