Definition
A Latin pleading formula meaning "likewise" or "the like." In common-law pleading, similiter is the short written acceptance by one party of an issue of fact tendered by the opposing party. When a party closed its pleading with an offer to submit a disputed fact to a jury — typically by words such as "and of this the defendant puts himself upon the country" — the opposing party's acceptance of that trial mode was expressed by the similiter, commonly rendered as "And the said plaintiff doth the like." The term also describes the broader act of joining issue, making it synonymous with joinder in issue.
The similiter performed a specific structural function in the sequence of common-law pleading: it marked the moment at which both parties formally agreed that a question of fact was ripe for jury trial. Without it, the record was technically incomplete and the case could not proceed to trial on the merits.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The form by which either party, in pleading, accepts the issue tendered by his/her opponent; a joinder in issue."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The technical name of the form by which either party, in pleading, accepts the issue tendered by his opponent; called sometimes a joinder in issue."
Editorial note: Here common and legal usage converge almost entirely — because similiter never carried a meaning outside of legal procedure. Both Wiktionary and Webster's 1913 define the term in purely procedural terms. The section is included only to note that the lay and legal vocabularies are, unusually, identical: the word has no life outside the courtroom record, and its apparent English meaning ("likewise") is almost never encountered outside technical pleading contexts.
Common Confusion
Similiter is sometimes loosely equated with the issue itself or with the entire process of issue formation. The distinction matters: the similiter is only the accepting party's response to an issue tendered by the opponent. The tender and the acceptance are separate acts. A party who tenders an issue of fact by putting it "upon the country" has not yet obtained a similiter; the record is incomplete until the opposing side responds in kind. Confusing the two can lead a researcher to misread pleading sequences in historical case files and court records.
Why It Matters in Research
Similiter is a creature of classical common-law pleading and is essentially obsolete in modern practice. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus are most likely to encounter it in three contexts: (1) pre-code English and American case records and pleading rolls, where the formula appears as a near-boilerplate closing; (2) treatises and commentaries on common-law pleading, particularly those citing Stephen's Principles of Pleading, where the term is analyzed as part of the formal structure of issue formation; and (3) appellate decisions testing the sufficiency of pleadings, especially before the mid-nineteenth-century procedural reforms.
A key navigational trap: after the Field Code reforms of 1848 in New York and the subsequent adoption of code pleading across most American jurisdictions, similiter as a formal required step disappeared from practice. Researchers reading post-reform cases that discuss similiter are almost always dealing with a question about the sufficiency of pre-reform pleadings being reviewed on appeal, or with jurisdictions that retained common-law pleading procedures longer than average. England's Judicature Acts of 1873–1875 similarly displaced the classical pleading system. Do not assume that a mid-to-late nineteenth-century case invoking similiter reflects then-current practice — it may be discussing historical procedure or construing older records.
The term also appears in pleading treatises as a touchstone for explaining the concept of joinder in issue more broadly. When Black's and Burrill's both cite Stephen's Pleading at pages 57 and 237, that is a reliable signal that the corpus of classical pleading commentary is the right research channel, not statutory or code materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core meaning. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's share nearly identical language — "the name of the short formula used either at the end of pleadings or by itself, expressive of the acceptance of an issue of fact tendered by the opposite party" — and all three cite Stephen's Pleading as the authoritative reference. Burrill adds useful texture by providing the actual English form of the formula: "And the said plaintiff doth the like," which he identifies as a literal translation of the old Latin original. This renders visible what the abbreviated Latin term obscures in the other dictionaries.
Rapalje & Lawrence offer the most procedurally detailed account, specifying the sequence of words used to tender an issue ("and of this the defendant puts himself upon the country") before the similiter was entered. This is the most useful historical dictionary entry for researchers trying to reconstruct how pleading exchanges actually appeared on the record.
What the dictionaries collectively underemphasize is the temporal dimension: none of the four entries flags that similiter was already archaic or in sharp decline at the time of their publication. Black's 1st and 2nd editions and Burrill's were published during or after the code pleading transition, yet they treat the term in the present tense as live procedure. Researchers should treat these definitions as accurate for historical practice, not as descriptions of contemporary usage at the time of publication.
Jurisdictional Note
Similiter was a feature of English common-law pleading exported to American colonial and early state courts. Its formal use ended at different times depending on when each jurisdiction adopted code or rules-based pleading. A handful of states retained elements of common-law pleading well into the twentieth century. English practice abandoned the form with the Judicature Acts. The term has no practical significance in federal practice after the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect in 1938.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Pleading (Common Law); Joinder in Issue; Issue, Formation of.