Definition
In historical legal usage, "put out" carries two distinct technical meanings preserved in early English property and nuisance law:
1. To open. Specifically, to open or cut windows in a wall — particularly a shared or boundary wall — in a manner that may affect a neighbor's rights or create a new easement.
2. To extinguish or block lights. "To put out lights" refers to the obstruction or extinguishment of a neighbor's access to natural light, implicating the doctrine of ancient lights and easements by prescription.
Both meanings arise in the context of neighboring property disputes, where the act of cutting a new window or blocking an existing one could alter legal rights between adjoining landowners.
The entry in both editions of Black's also preserves a Latin maxim: *Putagium hæreditatem non adimit* — "Incontinence [unchastity] does not take away an inheritance." This maxim, drawn from early English inheritance law, appears appended to the "put out" entry in both editions but is not definitionally related to the English phrase; it reflects the older dictionary practice of clustering related Latin phrases near similarly-spelled entries.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Put out" — Taking offense; indignant. Also used colloquially to mean inconvenienced or imposed upon.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not supplied.
The gap between legal and common meaning here is complete. The legal uses — opening windows and obstructing lights — bear no relationship to the modern colloquial sense of emotional displeasure. A researcher encountering "put out" in a historical English property dispute is reading a technical act with legal consequences, not an expression of feeling.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical English property law, nuisance doctrine, or easement disputes will encounter "put out" as a term of art embedded in pleadings and decisions concerning the right to light — one of the oldest recognized easements in English law. The doctrine of ancient lights held that a landowner who had enjoyed unobstructed natural light through windows for a sufficient period acquired a prescriptive easement; a neighbor who "put out" those lights (blocked them) could be liable in nuisance.
The citation to *11 East, 372* in both Black's editions refers to a volume of East's King's Bench Reports, a standard English reporter series. Researchers tracing this doctrine into American law should note that the right to light by prescription was largely rejected in the United States during the 19th century, meaning cases applying "put out" in the English sense will appear primarily in pre-Revolutionary colonial materials or in early American cases directly applying English common law.
The appended Latin maxim (*Putagium hæreditatem non adimit*) is a trap for the unwary. It appears under "put out" in both Black's editions but concerns inheritance rights and chastity requirements — a wholly separate area of law. The proximity is alphabetical and organizational, not substantive. Do not treat the maxim as a gloss on the English phrase.
Researchers in modern American law will rarely encounter "put out" as a defined legal term. Its practical significance is almost entirely confined to historical common law property disputes of English origin.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both the first and second editions of Black's Law Dictionary give nearly identical entries, suggesting the second edition copied the first without independent revision. The definition is skeletal — two phrases and a citation — without elaboration on the underlying doctrine of ancient lights or the procedural context in which "put out" would have been pled.
Neither edition explains the mechanism by which "putting out" lights created legal liability, nor do they distinguish between affirmative obstruction (blocking an existing window) and the act of opening a new window (which could itself affect neighboring rights). The entries treat the phrase as self-explanatory to readers already familiar with English property pleading conventions.
The Reeve citation (*1 Reeve, Eng. Law, c. 3, p. 117*) anchors the Latin maxim in John Reeve's *History of the English Law*, a recognized treatise on early English legal history. Its inclusion here is editorial shorthand, not a definition of "put out" itself.
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Jurisdictional Note
The "put out lights" doctrine derives from English common law and has minimal application in modern American jurisdictions. Most U.S. states declined to adopt the right to light by prescription, and the phrase "put out" in this technical sense will not appear in contemporary American statutes or regulations. Researchers in English, Canadian, or Australian legal materials will find greater currency.
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