Definition
A phrase of art appearing primarily in tariff and customs law, used to characterize goods that are alike in their essential commercial character and end use, even if not identical in composition or manufacturing process. Goods bearing a "similar description" to a classified article are those that serve the same or comparable market function and are commercially interchangeable or competitive with the reference article, regardless of whether they were produced by the same method.
The phrase also appears, in a different but related sense, in property law and deed drafting, where a "similar description" may refer to a property description that sufficiently identifies the subject matter of a conveyance by reference to a known or established standard, even when not exhaustively precise.
1. Customs and Tariff Sense: In tariff classification, goods fall under a "similar description" when their commercial identity — their product character and fitness for use — aligns with a listed category. The test is functional and commercial, not technical or manufacturing-based. Two articles may be produced by entirely different processes and still bear a similar description if they reach the market in equivalent form and serve equivalent purposes.
2. Property and Conveyancing Sense: In deed and conveyancing contexts, a similar description is one that, while not reproducing a prior description word for word, conveys the same parcel with sufficient certainty that a reasonable person can identify the land. This sense connects to the broader doctrine requiring that deed descriptions be adequate to locate and distinguish the property conveyed.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Similar description" has no discrete entry as a compound term. "Similar" means resembling but not identical; "description" means an account or representation of something.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Similar" — nearly corresponding; resembling in many respects though not identical. "Description" — a representation of anything in words; a delineation.
The gap between the common and legal meaning is meaningful in the tariff context. Ordinary usage of "similar description" would suggest simple resemblance in appearance or character. The legal term of art goes further: it establishes a functional commercial equivalence test, asking whether the goods serve the same use and compete in the same market — a conclusion that does not depend on shared appearance, shared ingredients, or shared manufacturing. A researcher encountering "similar description" in a customs case or tariff schedule should not read it as a loose synonym for "resembling."
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Why It Matters in Research
**Tariff and customs corpus.** The phrase "similar description" carries technical weight in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tariff litigation. Bouvier's records the controlling interpretive rule — goods need not be similarly manufactured, only similarly positioned in commerce and use — sourced from an 1884 federal decision (1 Hask. 586, referring to Sawyer v. United States in the District of Massachusetts). Researchers working through customs cases of that era should treat the phrase as a term of art signaling a functional equivalence analysis, not a superficial resemblance inquiry. The doctrine developed largely through judicial glossing of broad tariff schedule categories, so the surrounding case law is essential context.
**Property law corpus.** When "similar description" appears in deed disputes, wills, or conveyancing records, the research question shifts entirely. There, the operative doctrine is whether the description is legally sufficient to identify the land — a standard with its own tests (metes and bounds, government survey, plat reference, and the extrinsic evidence rules for resolving ambiguity). A description that closely tracks a prior recorded instrument may qualify as a "similar description" sufficient to identify the parcel even if it omits some particulars. Researchers should cross-reference the ambiguity doctrines in the property description materials.
**Trap for historical researchers.** The two senses — customs and property — are easily conflated when the phrase appears without surrounding context. The corpus placement (tariff case vs. deed dispute) is the primary disambiguation tool. Bouvier's entry addresses only the tariff sense and transitions immediately to the Latin pleading term SIMILITER, so researchers using Bouvier's as a starting point must be alert to the abrupt subject change and not read the pleading material as part of the "similar description" entry.
**No modern term of art persistence.** Contemporary customs classification under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule uses more precise statutory language and the General Rules of Interpretation, which have largely displaced the open-ended "similar description" analysis of nineteenth-century tariff practice. Modern research into customs classification should treat the historical doctrine as background, not controlling framework.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the only direct entry in the available source material. It records the operative rule concisely: "similar description" in a tariff act means similarity in product and suitability for similar uses, not identity of manufacturing method. Bouvier's cites 1 Hask. 586 as authority.
Bouvier's does not address the property law sense of the phrase, nor does it provide any broader doctrinal context for how courts applied the functional equivalence test across different tariff schedules or commodity categories. The entry is essentially a one-sentence rule with a citation — useful as a starting point but insufficient as a complete account of the doctrine's development.
No entry for "similar description" appears in Black's Law Dictionary or other standard shelf sources in the available corpus, which suggests the phrase was treated as self-explanatory in most contexts or absorbed into broader tariff classification discussions without discrete headnoting.
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Jurisdictional Note
In the tariff and customs context, the relevant jurisdiction is federal, as tariff classification is exclusively a matter of federal law administered through the customs courts and, eventually, the Court of International Trade. State courts may encounter "similar description" in deed and conveyancing disputes, where the applicable doctrine is governed by state property law and varies in its specifics — particularly on the question of what parol or extrinsic evidence may be used to cure a description that is ambiguous or incomplete.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Deed Requirements — Writing, Description, Grantor/Grantee, Delivery, and Acceptance (realestate_19)
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Property Descriptions — Metes and Bounds, Government Survey, Plat Maps, and Ambiguity (realestate_20)
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia: Real Estate Transactions — Deed Requirements (property_39)
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