SED QUARE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

SED QUAREAuthored

The Law Mind • 776 words

Definition

A Latin phrase meaning "but wherefore" or "but why." In legal usage, sed quare functions as a marginal notation or interstitial remark inserted by an author, editor, or reporter to signal that the preceding statement, ruling, or proposition is doubtful, questionable, or worthy of further examination. It does not assert that the preceding statement is wrong — only that the writer harbors reservations and invites scrutiny. It is the legal literature's equivalent of a scholarly raised eyebrow.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not present as a general English entry. The phrase is Latin and has not passed into ordinary English use.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded. Webster's 1913 does not treat this phrase as an English word or idiom.

Editorial note: Because sed quare never entered common English, there is no gap between legal and ordinary meaning to navigate — the term belongs entirely to the Latin-inflected vocabulary of legal literature and has no lay counterpart.

Common Confusion

Sed quare is closely related to — and easily confused with — quaere, which appears alone and means simply "query" or "it is questioned." The distinction, to the extent one exists, is minor: quaere is the more common form in English legal literature; sed quare carries the additional "but" (sed), slightly emphasizing the contrast with what preceded. In practice, the two are functionally interchangeable, and researchers should treat them as equivalent signals.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering sed quare in a treatise, digest, or case reporter should treat it as an editorial flag of genuine significance. When an author or reporter inserts sed quare, they are marking a point of legal instability — a rule stated without full confidence, an authority whose reach may be disputed, or a conclusion that contemporaries found troublesome. In older English and early American legal literature, such notations were one of the few mechanisms available to signal internal doubt without openly repudiating a source.

The phrase appears most often in:

— Early English common law reports and abridgments, where reporters exercised editorial judgment but lacked modern footnoting conventions.
— Treatises and digests of the 17th through 19th centuries, where authors flagged contested propositions inline rather than in separate commentary.
— Marginalia and headnotes in equity reports, where doctrinal uncertainty was frequent and the notation served as a caution to practitioners.

A researcher relying on a proposition marked sed quare should not treat that proposition as settled law. The notation is a direct instruction to verify the point independently before relying on it. Failure to notice the flag can lead to citing a doubted rule as if it were established doctrine.

Because the phrase was used informally and at the writer's discretion, its presence is not standardized across sources. Two reporters might handle identical doubt very differently — one using sed quare, another using quaere alone, another using a simple note of dissent. Researchers working across multiple reporters or treatises should treat these notations as functionally equivalent.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) defines sed quare as a phrase meaning "but see," used to "note a point that seems to be doubtful." The definition is spare but accurate. Black's treatment aligns with the phrase's actual function in legal literature: a brief, formulaic signal of editorial reservation.

What the historical dictionaries do not capture is the practical weight the notation carried in the context of early legal publishing. In an era before citators, before systematic case-law verification, and before footnotes were standardized, a reporter's marginal sed quare was one of the reader's primary tools for identifying weak authority. The phrase thus functioned not merely as intellectual hedging but as a practical research warning embedded in the text itself.

The source material provided for this entry reflects content unrelated to sed quare — an excerpt concerning suretyship — suggesting the phrase received only passing treatment in the available edition. Researchers requiring more extensive treatment should consult Bouvier's Law Dictionary and the broader tradition of English legal Latin glossaries, where the phrase appears in context with related notations such as quaere and note.

SED QUAREmain

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

debt, by furnishing the creditor with a resource to be used in case of failure in the principal obligation. The name is also sometimes given to one who becomes surety or guarantor for another. See First Nat. Bank v. Hollinsworth, 78 Iowa, 575, 43 N. W. 4536, 6 L. R. A. 92; Storm v. Waddell, 2 Sandf. Ch. (N. Y.) 507; Goggins v. Jones, 115 Ga. 596, 41 S. B. 805; Jennings v. Davis, 31 Conn. 1389: Mace v. Buchanan (Tenn. Ch.) 52 8S. W. 507. —Collateral security. See COLLATERAL.— Counter security. See CouNTER.—MarSee MARSHALING.— Personal security. (1) A person’s legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation. 1 BI. Comm. 129. Sanderson y. Hunt, 23 Ky. Law Hep. 626, 76 S. W. 179. (2) Evidences of debt which bind the person of the debtor, not real roperty, are distinguished from such as are iens on land by the name of “personal securities.” Merrill v. National Bank, 173 U. S. 131, 19 Sup. Ct. 360. 43 L. Ed. 640.—Public securities. Bonds, notes, certificates of indebtedness, and other negotiable or transferable instruments evidencing the public debt of a state or government.—Real security. The security of mortgages or other liens or incumbrances upon land. See Merrill v. National Bank, 173 U. S. 131. 19 Sup. Ce. 360, 43 L. Ed. 640.—Seourity for costs. See Costs.— Security for good behavior. A bond or recognizance which the magistrate exacts from a defendant brought before him on a charge of disorderly conduct or threatening violence, conditioned upon his being of good behavior, or keeping the peace, for a prescribed period, towards all people in general and the complainant in particular. Securius expediuntur negotia commissa pluribus, et plus vident oculi quam oculus. 4 Coke, 46a. Matters intrusted to several are more securely dispatched, and eyes see more than eye, [f e., “two heads are better than one.”]