Definition
A Latin term from Roman and medieval legal language meaning "to give back," "to return," "to render," or "to restore." In legal contexts, *reddare* expresses an obligation to return something to its rightful owner or to render a thing, performance, or payment due under a legal instrument. The term appears most frequently in older deeds, conveyances, and pleadings as a root or stem word, and in two closely related derivative terms — *reddendo singula singulis* and *reddendum* — that carried specific operative meanings in property and contract law.
Although *reddare* itself rarely appears as a standalone term in modern legal instruments, understanding it is essential for reading medieval and early modern legal documents in which it functions as the verb anchoring key clauses.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
REDDENDO SINGULA SINGULIS: A maxim of construction meaning "referring each thing to each person" — that is, construing language distributively so that each clause or item in a list applies to the appropriate corresponding subject or person. When a deed or instrument names multiple parties or subjects and then makes plural grants or impositions, this maxim directs the reader to match each grant or condition to its correct antecedent rather than treating them collectively. It functions as a rule of grammatical and logical precision in the interpretation of complex instruments.
REDDENDUM: The clause in a deed by which the grantor reserves something out of what has been granted — most commonly a rent, service, or other periodic obligation that the grantee must render back to the grantor. The reddendum appears after the *habendum* clause and typically begins with words such as "yielding and paying." It defines the consideration running from grantee to grantor as an ongoing obligation rather than a one-time payment. See also: DEED; YIELD.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will encounter *reddare* and its derivatives almost exclusively in historical materials — English and colonial deeds, feudal conveyances, ecclesiastical grants, and early common law pleadings. The term is not operative in modern drafting, but it remains a necessary reading tool for anyone analyzing instruments from roughly the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries.
The most research-critical derivative is *reddendum*. Misreading or overlooking the reddendum clause in a historical deed can cause a researcher to misidentify the nature of the tenure, the ongoing obligations attached to land, or the distinction between a fee simple absolute and a fee farm or tenure by rent service. In feudal conveyancing, the reddendum was not boilerplate — it was where the real economic and tenurial relationship between grantor and grantee was spelled out.
*Reddendo singula singulis* matters in a different way: it is a canon of construction that courts and treatise writers invoked to resolve apparent ambiguities in instruments with complex or parallel grammatical structures. Researchers tracing the interpretation of a particular deed or will in case law may find this maxim cited as the decisive rule. Knowing the phrase allows correct identification of the interpretive move being made.
A navigational note: historical indices and digests do not always group these derivative terms together under a single root. Researchers should search *reddendum*, *reddendo*, and *reddare* separately, as well as checking under DEED, CONSTRUCTION, and YIELD in period-specific legal dictionaries and digests.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides the core framework: *reddare* as the Latin infinitive meaning to give back, return, render, or restore, with two derivatives defined — *reddendo singula singulis* (distributive construction) and *reddendum* (the yielding and paying clause in a deed). Anderson's treatment is economical but accurate. The cross-references to DEED and YIELD signal where the reddendum clause fits within the broader structure of conveyancing instruments.
Anderson does not explore the feudal context of the reddendum in depth, nor does he address the relationship between *reddare* and *redditus* (rent), a connection that is important for understanding why "yielding and paying" language appeared in this specific clause. Researchers who need fuller treatment of the reddendum's function in tenure law should consult historical property law treatises such as Blackstone's *Commentaries* (Book II, Chapter 20) and Coke on Littleton, both of which analyze the clause within the framework of feudal services and rent reservation.
The *reddendo singula singulis* maxim is well-attested across legal dictionaries and treatises on statutory and documentary construction. Anderson's brief formulation is consistent with the standard treatment found in Broom's *Legal Maxims* and similar collections, though those sources provide illustrative examples that Anderson omits.
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Jurisdictional Note
Because *reddare* and its derivatives are historical Latin terms rooted in English common law conveyancing, they carry consistent meaning across jurisdictions that inherited the English property law tradition, including the United States and Commonwealth countries. Variation exists not by jurisdiction but by era: the reddendum clause and *reddendo singula singulis* canon appear in sources predating roughly 1800 far more frequently than in later materials.
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