Definition
"Sent" does not function as a standalone legal term of art in the Anglo-American legal tradition. The word appears in legal instruments and pleadings only as ordinary past-tense English — most commonly in the phrases "sent notice," "sent by post," or similar constructions describing the act of transmitting a document, communication, or process. Its legal significance, when it arises, is entirely contextual: the question is not what "sent" means in isolation, but what legal consequences attach to the act of sending in a given procedural or contractual context.
In some civil law and international monetary contexts, "sent" (also rendered "senti" in plural) refers to a subdivision of currency equal to one hundredth of the Estonian kroon, the former national currency of Estonia. This usage has no meaningful presence in Anglo-American legal research.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A subdivision of currency equal to one hundredth of an Estonian kroon.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not treat "sent" as an independent headword, directing readers instead to "scent" with a notation that the form is obsolete, citing Spenser.
The gap between common and legal usage is essentially total: neither the currency subdivision meaning nor the archaic literary usage has any foothold in Anglo-American legal doctrine. Researchers encountering "sent" in legal sources should treat it as ordinary English describing an act of transmission, not as a term carrying independent legal definition.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers are unlikely to encounter "sent" as a term requiring dictionary support. Its significance in legal texts is almost always procedural rather than definitional — the operative question being whether a notice, writ, or communication was "sent" in a manner satisfying a statutory or contractual requirement.
When reviewing historical instruments or pleadings in the Law Mind corpus, "sent" may appear in fixed phrases such as "sent by post," "sent under seal," or "sent by messenger," each of which carries procedural weight under the rules governing notice, service of process, or the mailbox rule in contract law. Researchers working on notice disputes or service questions should trace those phrases to the surrounding procedural context rather than to any dictionary definition of the word itself.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry retrieved against this term does not define "sent" — the text is plainly a fragment of index or cross-reference material listing unrelated headwords (UNDERTAKE, INTERRUPTION, MARRIED, DEFALCATION, etc.). This is a retrieval artifact, not a substantive definition. Researchers should not treat it as evidence that Rapalje & Lawrence defined "sent" as a legal term.
Historical Dictionary Support
No historical legal dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — including Rapalje & Lawrence — defines "sent" as a legal term of art. The Rapalje & Lawrence text returned against this query is index matter listing other headwords and does not constitute an entry for "sent." Webster's 1913 treats the word as an obsolete spelling variant of "scent." There is no historical legal authority to synthesize here, and none should be fabricated.