Definition
"Seq." is a Latin abbreviation used in two distinct senses in legal writing:
1. As an abbreviation of sequitur ("it follows"): Used in logical argumentation and judicial opinions to signal that a conclusion follows from premises stated. Appears in maxims, syllogistic reasoning, and scholastic legal writing.
2. As an abbreviation of sequentes or sequentia ("the following" or "and those following"): Used in citation practice to indicate that a reference extends beyond a single page or section to the pages or sections immediately following. Written "p. ____ et seq." (and the following pages). This is the dominant modern usage in legal citation and research.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Abbreviation of "sequence" or of "sequitur."
Historical common usage: Not separately defined in Webster's 1913; both underlying Latin terms appear in common learned usage as general abbreviations in academic and scientific writing.
Editorial note: In ordinary academic and scientific writing, "seq." most often signals a sequence or series. In legal writing, the predominant function is citation-extending — directing the reader forward through a text — which has no meaningful counterpart in general usage. A researcher encountering "seq." in a legal brief or opinion should default to the citation-extension meaning unless the logical-argumentation context makes "sequitur" apparent.
Common Confusion
"Et seq." versus specific page ranges: Modern citation guides, including the Bluebook, disfavor "et seq." in formal legal citation because it fails to identify the precise scope of the cited passage. Researchers relying on "et seq." in older briefs or secondary sources may need to independently locate the full relevant passage rather than trusting the abbreviation to define it. "Et seq." should not be confused with "et al." (abbreviation for et alii, "and others"), which refers to persons rather than pages or sections.
Why It Matters in Research
The abbreviation functions differently depending on the era and document type. In older treatises, Latinized opinions, and ecclesiastical or civil law texts, "seq." or "sequitur" appears as part of logical shorthand — tracking an argument's structure. In modern and transitional-era materials (roughly post-1850 forward), "et seq." is overwhelmingly a citation tool pointing a reader to a statutory provision, code section, or treatise passage that continues across multiple pages.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to two practical issues. First, statutes cited as "§ ___ et seq." in historical sources may have been renumbered, amended, or repealed; the abbreviation tells you where the drafter was pointing but not whether the target still exists in that form. Second, in earlier ecclesiastical, Roman law, and civil law texts — precisely the environment Burrill's Law Dictionary inhabits — "seq." may carry argumentative rather than citational weight, and reading it as a page reference will produce confusion.
Burrill's Law Dictionary, as a mid-nineteenth-century source oriented heavily toward civil law and common law maxims, uses Latin abbreviations throughout its apparatus. Researchers consulting Burrill for maxim definitions or for civil law terms will encounter "seq." in its argumentative register far more frequently than in modern practice materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary does not carry a standalone entry for "seq." as an independent term. The abbreviation appears in the surrounding textual apparatus — in maxims, in cross-references, and in the scholarly annotation characteristic of Burrill's method. The fragment preserved in the source material illustrates this: Latin maxims (sententia a non judice lata nemini debet nocere; sententia interlocutoria revocari potest) are presented in the compressed, citation-dense style where "seq." would naturally appear as a connective or directional marker.
No historical legal dictionary in the standard shelf — Black's, Bouvier, Tomlin, Jacob — carries a discrete entry for "seq." as a headword, which is consistent with its status as an abbreviation rather than a term of art. Its meaning is assumed, not defined, across the tradition. This creates a research gap: users of older legal materials who are unfamiliar with Latin citation conventions may misread or overlook the abbreviation entirely.
Jurisdictional Note
"Et seq." in statutory citation is used across American, British, and Commonwealth legal writing, though its frequency has declined in formal American citation under Bluebook influence. Civil law jurisdictions and their derivative legal literatures use "seq." and "seqq." (sequentes, plural) more consistently and with greater precision in doctrinal texts.