Definition
A sich is a minor watercourse or water furrow — specifically, a small current of water that runs dry in summer. The term appears in English legal sources primarily in the context of land boundaries, drainage rights, and the description of water features on agricultural or common land. It is functionally equivalent to a seasonal ditch or gutter, distinguishable from a permanent stream by its intermittent character.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An administrative and military centre for the Zaporozhian and Danube Cossacks.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An archaic or colloquial form of "such" (Spenser).
Neither the modern nor the historical common meaning bears any relationship to the legal term. The legal sich is a narrow, technical descriptor for a specific class of minor watercourse found in English land law. A researcher encountering "sich" in a legal document should not import the Cossack administrative meaning or the archaic pronoun usage — the legal sense is exclusively hydrological.
Common Confusion
SICH and SICIUS are distinct terms appearing in close proximity in historical dictionaries. Sicius refers to a type of early English currency valued at two pence. The similarity in spelling and their proximity in alphabetically arranged sources creates a risk of conflation, particularly in manuscript or poorly typeset historical documents. A sich marks water; a sicius marks money.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with medieval and early modern English conveyancing records, manorial surveys, enclosure agreements, or estate boundary descriptions may encounter "sich" as a boundary marker or drainage feature. Several considerations apply:
First, the term is rare and highly localized. Its appearance in legal documents signals probable reliance on Cowell's Interpreter, the primary authority cited in both editions of Black's. Researchers should treat Cowell as the interpretive anchor when this term surfaces.
Second, because a sich is dry in summer, disputes involving water rights or riparian claims along a sich may depend heavily on seasonality evidence. The intermittent nature of the watercourse is legally significant — a sich is not a navigable stream, not a permanent watercourse, and likely not subject to the same riparian presumptions as a running river.
Third, the term does not appear to have generated substantial case law under this specific name, which may indicate it was absorbed into broader categories of "water furrow," "ditch," or "gutter" in pleadings and judgments. Researchers should cross-search under those synonyms when tracing a sich in litigation records.
Fourth, the second edition of Black's adds the entry for SICIUS immediately after SICH, which compounds the risk of transcription error in secondary sources. Always verify which term a historical authority actually intended.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define sich identically, drawing directly on Cowell without elaboration: "A little current of water, which is dry in summer; a water furrow or gutter." The first edition does not distinguish sich from sicius or cross-reference related water-law terms. The second edition separates the entries typographically, which is a modest improvement but still provides no contextual legal analysis.
Neither edition situates sich within water law doctrine, riparian rights theory, or land boundary practice. This is a significant gap: the practical legal question a sich raises — whether it constitutes a watercourse capable of supporting riparian rights, drainage easements, or boundary definitions — is left entirely to the researcher. Historical dictionaries treat this as a vocabulary entry, not a legal concept.
Cowell's Interpreter (1607) is the root authority and remains the most useful primary source for understanding how the term was deployed in practice.
Jurisdictional Note
Sich is an English legal term of art rooted in English common law and land practice. It has no established presence in American legal usage. Researchers working in American property law or water law contexts are unlikely to encounter it except in historical sources tracing English common law inheritance.