PRESENT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

PRESENTAuthored

The Law Mind • 1595 words

Definition

PRESENT operates in legal sources as at least four distinct terms — an adjective, an adverb, a verb, and a noun — and each carries independent legal significance. Researchers must identify which sense is at work before relying on any dictionary definition.

1. PRESENT (adj.) — At a place; contemporaneous. Something or someone is "present" either physically or by legal construction. Courts have extended the concept through the doctrine of constructive presence, so a principal directing a crime from a distance may be "present" for purposes of criminal liability. The adjective also describes a temporal quality: a present interest, estate, or use is one that exists and is operative now, as opposed to a future interest that has not yet vested or a past interest that has concluded. In will and trust construction, courts regularly must determine whether a bequest conditioned on "present" status — present spouse, present physician, present employee — refers to the date of execution or the date of death.

2. PRESENT (adv.) — Now; immediately. The adverb "presently" in older legal instruments often means "at once" or "immediately," not "soon" or "in a little while" as it tends to mean in modern general usage. This temporal compression matters in construction of deed conditions, contractual deadlines, and jointure provisions.

3. PRESENT (v.) — To bring formally before an authority. Three distinct legal contexts:

   (a) Ecclesiastical: To offer a candidate clerk to a bishop for institution to a benefice. This is the act of the patron exercising the right of advowson.

   (b) Grand jury: To bring a crime to the attention of the court based on the grand jury's own knowledge or observation, without a bill of indictment laid before them by a prosecutor. A presentment in this sense is self-initiated grand jury action.

   (c) Negotiable instruments: To tender an instrument — a check, note, or draft — to the drawee or maker for payment or acceptance. Proper presentment is a condition precedent to holder's rights against secondary parties.

   (d) Legislative: To lay an enrolled bill before the executive for signature or veto. The Presentment Clause of the U.S. Constitution governs this process for federal legislation.

4. PRESENT (n.) — A gift; specifically, a thing given. The constitutional sense (federal officers prohibited from accepting presents from foreign sovereigns without congressional consent) uses this noun form. In ordinary wills and deeds, "presents" appears in the formal phrase "know all men by these presents," where it means "this document" rather than gifts.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To bring someone into the presence of another; to introduce formally; to offer a problem or complaint to an authority; to charge a person with a crime; to appear or represent oneself outwardly.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Being at hand, within reach or call; opposed to absent. Now existing, or in process; begun but not ended; not past or future.

The gap between ordinary and legal meaning is significant in two directions. First, the noun sense — a gift, a thing given — has almost vanished from everyday English but remains alive in constitutional law (the Emoluments and Foreign Presents Clause) and in historical instruments. A researcher seeing "present" as a noun in an older document should not read it as a verb or adjective. Second, the adverb "presently" has undergone meaning drift: legal instruments from earlier centuries used it to mean "immediately," while modern speakers use it to mean "soon" or "currently." Misreading this distinction in a time-sensitive contractual or testamentary provision can invert the intended obligation entirely.

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Common Confusion

PRESENT (grand jury presentment) vs. INDICTMENT: These are not synonyms. An indictment is initiated by the prosecutor, who lays a bill before the grand jury. A presentment is initiated by the grand jury itself, based on its own knowledge. The practical distinction has narrowed in American practice — many jurisdictions have abolished or merged the presentment — but the distinction remains important in historical sources and in interpreting constitutional text, where both terms appear alongside each other.

PRESENT (negotiate instruments) vs. DEMAND: Presentment in negotiable instruments law is a formal act with timing, manner, and notice requirements specified by the Uniform Commercial Code and its predecessors. It is not equivalent to making a general demand for payment, and failure to make proper presentment can extinguish rights against endorsers and secondary parties. Researchers should not treat "presentment" and "demand" as interchangeable in the instruments context.

PRESENTLY (immediately) vs. PRESENTLY (soon): As noted above, this adverb carried the meaning "at once" in historical legal drafting. Modern readers instinctively read it as "in a little while." The opposite meanings can matter enormously in contract performance and condition analysis.

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Why It Matters in Research

Polysemy is the central research hazard here. When PRESENT appears in a historical source, the reader must first resolve which of the four senses — adjective, adverb, verb, noun — is operative, and then which subspecies of the verbal or adjectival sense applies. Black's 2nd Ed. addresses the verb in criminal and ecclesiastical and instruments contexts; Bouvier addresses the noun in the constitutional context; Anderson addresses the adjective in the estates and construction context. No single historical dictionary covers all senses in one place, which means researchers working across practice areas must cross-reference.

For corpus researchers, the following signals help:

— "By these presents" → noun sense, means "this document." Almost always found in formal instrument preambles.
— "Present estate" or "present interest" → adjective, estates law. Look for contrast with "future" or "vested."
— "Presently" in pre-20th century instruments → adverb meaning "immediately," not "soon."
— "Present to the bishop" or "presentment of a clerk" → ecclesiastical verb. Relevant to advowson and church property research.
— "Grand jury presentment" → criminal verb. Distinguish from indictment; check whether jurisdiction has abolished the form.
— "Presentment" in bills, notes, checks → instruments verb. Look for UCC successor provisions.
— "Present" as prohibited gift → constitutional noun. Foreign Emoluments context.

The overlap with the legislative Presentment Clause (constitutional law) means that searches in constitutional corpora will surface the verb sense in a formal bicameralism and veto context that is distinct from all the above. Researchers using full-text search should build queries that account for all these senses if working across practice areas or time periods.

The temporal adjective sense — present vs. future — is particularly active in trusts and estates research and in damages calculation. "Present value" in torts and contracts is an arithmetic concept (discounting future damages to their current worth) that borrows the adjective sense but operates as a term of art in its own right.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The three source dictionaries divide the field without fully coordinating it, which itself tells researchers something about how the term was understood historically.

Black's 2nd Ed. concentrates on the verb: presenting a clerk in ecclesiastical law, presenting to a grand jury (self-initiated criminal finding), and presenting a negotiable instrument. These three senses reflect the uses that generated the most litigation and doctrinal development by the early 20th century.

Anderson provides the most useful treatment of the adjective, directly addressing the temporal construction problem — present vs. past vs. future — and flagging the will-construction question (present attending physician = physician at date of will). Anderson also captures the adverbial force of "presently" as "now; at once; immediately," a definition that modern dictionaries have largely abandoned.

Bouvier addresses only the noun, and does so primarily through the constitutional provision restricting federal officers from accepting foreign presents. Bouvier's treatment is brief and frankly incomplete as a general definition, but its focus on the constitutional dimension is the most historically specific of the three.

What all three historical dictionaries underweight or omit entirely: the legislative presentment (the Presentment Clause process of laying bills before the President), present value as a damages concept, and the phrase "by these presents" as a formal instrument convention. These senses either postdate the dictionaries' active focus or developed through other channels. Researchers should not assume that silence in these sources means legal irrelevance.

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Jurisdictional Note

Grand jury presentment is recognized under the Fifth Amendment in federal criminal practice but is largely nominal or abolished in many states, which have moved to information-based charging. The ecclesiastical presentment sense is effectively obsolete in American law but remains operative in English ecclesiastical law. The negotiable instruments presentment is substantially uniform across U.S. jurisdictions through UCC Article 3, though pre-UCC state common law variations appear in historical corpus materials.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia: "The Legislative Process — Bicameralism, Presentment, and the Veto" (legislative Presentment Clause context)
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: "Compulsory Process — Right to Present Defense Witnesses" (criminal procedural context)
The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia: "Negligence — Damages — Future Damages and Present Value" (present value as damages concept)

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PRESENTmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

PRESENT, v. In English ecclesiastical law. To offer a clerk to the bishop of the diocese, to be instituted. 1 Bl. Comm. 389. In criminal law. To find or represent judicially; used of the official act of a grand jury when they take notice of a crime or offense from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them. In the law of negotiable instruments. Primarily, to present is to tender or offer. Thus, to present a bill of exchange for acceptance or payment is to exhibit it to the drawee or acceptor, (or his authorized agent,) with an express or implied demand for acceptance or payment. Byles, Bills, 183, 201. PRESENT, n. A gift; a gratuity; anything presented or given. PRESENT, adj. Now existing; at hand; relating to the present time; considered with reference to the present time. —Present enjoyment. The immediate or present possession and use of an estate or property, as distinguished from such as is postponed to a future time.—Present estate. estate in immediate possession; one now exist- , or vested at the present time; as distinguished from a future estate, the enjoyment of which is postponed to a future time.—Present fmterest. One which entitles the owner to the immediate possession of the property. Civ. Code Mont. 1896, § 1110; Rev. Codes N. D. 1899, § 3288; Civ. Code S. D. 1903, § 204. —Present use. One which has an immediate existence, and is at once operated upon by the statute of uses.

PRESENTmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

1, adj. (1) To be in a designated place, actually, or by construction of law. See PRESENCE. (2) Now existing; neither ended nor yet to begin; neither past nor future: as, present time, estate, use, enjoyment, qq. v. A bequest to a "present" attending physician, refers to the physician in attendance at the date of the will." Presently. Now; at once; immediately. A jointure takes effect "presently after the death of the husband; " and a donation mortis causa "presently belongs to the donee," in case the donor dies.4 2, υ. (1) Το offer for acceptance or payment. Presentment. Producing or tendering, according to the terms of either instrument, (1) a bill of exchange to the drawee for acceptance or to the acceptor for payment; or (2) a promissory note to the maker for payment.5 Presentment of a bill is to be made on the drawee that he may judge of the genuineness and of the right of the holder to receive the contents, and that he may obtain immediate possession of the bill upon payment of the amount. Ordinarily, the instrument should be produced, so that, upon payment, it may be delivered up. See AcCEPT, 2; NEGOTIABLE; PLACE, Of payment. (2) In criminal law, to find, represent, or report officially. Presentment. The notice taken by a grand jury of an offense from their own knowledge or observation, without a bill of indictment being laid before them.8 Upon this presentment an indictment is framed. In Massachusetts, an indictment begins "the jurors on their oath present." In some other jurisdictions, where the offense is continuing, the charge is that the Baldwin v. Baldwin, 81 Va. 410-14 (1886), cases, Lacy, J.; Neil v. Neil, 1 Leigh, 11 (1829), Carr, J. See generally 17 Cent. Law J. 412-47 (1883), cases. 2 Everett v. Carr, 59 Me. 333 (1871). 2 Bl. Com. 137. 1 Story, Eq. § 606. defendant, on a day named, and between that day and the day of the "taking of this inquisition," committed certain acts. And in some others the words are "the day of the making of this presentment." At common law, every indictment is a presentment. "Presentment" here means, not the delivery of the indictment to the court, but that a certain person has committed the acts set forth. The jurors "represent" or "show" those facts; present what they find to be the facts, and they find what they represent. The finding and the presentment mean the same. See INDICTMENT. Presents. (1) In the expressions "Know all men by these presents" and "To all to whom these presents may come," refers simply to the instrument or writing then in hand, or being read or spoken of. The original was præsentes literæ, words before the reader: formal words of description in old conveyances. "By these presents" is a phrase peculiar to conveyances and contracts in common-law countries. It is not found in documents executed under the civil law.2 (2) See BAGGAGE; GIFT, 13; INSOLVENCY; SERVICE, 3, Civil. "No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." s

PRESENTmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A gift, or more properly, the thing given. It is provided by the con- stitution of the United States, art. 1, s. 9, n. 7, that "no person holding any office of profit or trust under them [the United States] shall, without the consent of con- gress, accept of any present, emolument, or office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."

PRESENTa.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Being at hand, within reach or call, within certain contemplated limits; -- opposed to absent. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. John xiv. 25. Now existing, or in process; begun but not ended; now in view, or under consideration; being at this time; not past or future; as, the present session of Congress; the present state of affairs; the present instance. I'll bring thee to the present business Shak. Not delayed; immediate; instant; coincident. "A present recompense." "A present pardon." Shak. An ambassador . . . desires a present audience. Massinger. Ready; quick in emergency; as a present wit. [R.] Favorably attentive; propitious. [Archaic] To find a god so present to my prayer. Dryden. Present tense (Gram.), the tense or form of a verb which expresses action or being in the present time; as, I am writing, I write, or I do write.

PRESENTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Present time; the time being; time in progress now, or at the moment contemplated; as, at this present. Past and present, wound in one. Tennyson. Present letters or instrument, as a deed of conveyance, a lease, letter of attorney, or other writing; as in the phrase, " Know all men by these presents," that is, by the writing itself, " per has literas praesentes; " -- in this sense, rarely used in the singular. A present tense, or the form of the verb denoting the present tense. At present, at the present time; now.  -- For the present, for the tine being; temporarily.  -- In present, at once, without delay. [Obs.] "With them, in present, half his kingdom; the rest to follow at his death." Milton.

PRESENTv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To bring or introduce into the presence of some one, especially of a superior; to introduce formally; to offer for acquaintance; as, to present an envoy to the king; (with the reciprocal pronoun) to come into the presence of a superior. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the lord. Job i. 6 To exhibit or offer to view or notice; to lay before one's perception or cognizance; to set forth; to present a fine appearance. Lectorides's memory is ever . . . presenting him with the thoughts of other persons. I. Watts. To pass over, esp. in a ceremonious manner; to give in charge or possession; to deliver; to make over. So ladies in romance assist their knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. Pope. To make a gift of; to bestow; to give, generally in a formal or ceremonious manner; to grant; to confer. My last, least offering, I present thee now. Cowper. Hence: To endow; to bestow a gift upon; to favor, as with a donation; also, to court by gifts. Octavia presented the poet for him admirable elegy on her son Marcellus. Dryden. To present; to personate. [Obs.] Shak. In specific uses; To nominate to an ecclesiastical benefice; to offer to the bishop or ordinary as a candidate for institution. The patron of a church may present his clerk to a parsonage or vicarage; that is, may offer him to the bishop of the diocese to be instituted. Blackstone. To nominate for support at a public school or other institution . Lamb. To lay before a public body, or an official, for consideration, as before a legislature, a court of judicature, a corporation, etc.; as, to present a memorial, petition, remonstrance, or indictment. To lay before a court as an object of inquiry; to give notice officially of, as a crime of offence; to find or represent judicially; as, a grand jury present certain offenses or nuisances, or whatever they think to be public injuries. To bring an indictment against . [U.S] To aim, point, or direct, as a weapon; as, to present a pistol or the point of a sword to the breast of another. Pesent arms (Mil.), the command in response to which the gun is carried perpendicularly in front of the center of the body, and held there with the left hand grasping it at the lower band, and the right hand grasping the small of the stock, in token of respect, as in saluting a superior officer; also, the position taken at such a command.

presentverb

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.

To bring (someone) into the presence of (a person); to introduce formally. | To appear or represent oneself outwardly. | To nominate (a member of the clergy) for an ecclesiastical benefice; to offer to the bishop or ordinary as a candidate for institution. | To offer (a problem, complaint) to a court or other authority for consideration. | To charge (a person) with a crime or accusation; to bring before court. | To come forward, appear in a particular place or before a particular person, especially formally. | To put (something) forward in order for it to be seen; to show, exhibit. | To make clear to one's mind or intelligence; to put forward for consideration. | To put on, stage (a play etc.). | To point (a firearm) at something, to hold (a weapon) in a position ready to fire. | To offer oneself for mental consideration; to occur to the mind. | To come to the attention of medical staff, especially with a specific symptom. | To appear (in a specific way) for delivery (of a fetus); to appear first at the mouth of the uterus during childbirth. | To appear or represent oneself (as having a certain gender). | To act as presenter on (a radio, television programme etc.). | To give a gift or presentation to (someone). | To deliver (something abstract) as though as a gift; to offer. | To hand over (a bill etc.) to be paid. | To display one's female genitalia in a way that signals to others that one is ready for copulation. Also referred to as lordosis behaviour. | In omegaverse fiction, to have one's secondary sex (alpha, omega, or beta) become apparent, typically at puberty.

presentadj

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Relating to now, for the time being; current. | Located in the immediate vicinity. | Having an immediate effect (of a medicine, poison etc.); fast-acting. | Not delayed; immediate; instant. | Ready; quick in emergency. | Favorably attentive; propitious. | Relating to something a person is referring to in the very context, with a deictic use similar to the demonstrative adjective this. | Attentive; alert; focused. | Neither for or against (used in voting to express abstention)

presentnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

The current moment or period of time. | The present tense.

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