Definition
In legal usage, "some" carries two distinct meanings depending on context.
1. Ordinary quantitative sense. As used in statutes, contracts, pleadings, and legal argument, "some" functions as an indefinite quantifier meaning an unspecified but nonzero quantity or number. Courts frequently must determine whether "some" evidence, "some" consideration, or "some" connection to a forum is sufficient to satisfy a legal standard. In this sense the word imports existence without specifying amount.
2. Historical proper-noun sense (obsolete). In the old action of ejectment, "Some" — typically as part of the name "Richard Doe v. William Stiles, casual ejector" — was the surname assigned to the fictitious casual ejector, a wholly imaginary defendant whose role was to set the ejectment machinery in motion. The full cast of fiction included a fictional lessee of the plaintiff, a fictional ejector, and a fictional defendant, and "Some" or a similar placeholder name was assigned to one of these roles. This procedural device was abolished with the reform of common-law pleading and the replacement of the old action of ejectment by statutory and code procedures.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An unspecified but nonzero quantity, proportion, or number; a certain unspecified thing or person; approximately (when used with a number); remarkable or noteworthy (informal emphatic use).
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Consisting of a greater or less portion or sum; composed of a quantity or number not stated; expressing an indefinite quantity or number; also, a certain one or ones.
The gap between the common and legal meanings is real but narrow in the quantitative sense — courts treat "some" as a term of art when embedded in legal standards (e.g., "some evidence," "some nexus," "some rational basis"), where it signals a deliberately low but nonzero threshold rather than a vague colloquial impression. The obsolete proper-noun sense has no counterpart in ordinary speech at all.
Common Confusion
The word "some" in legal standards is frequently read as merely casual or imprecise language when it is in fact doing threshold work. When a court says a record must contain "some evidence" to support a finding, or that due process requires "some form of notice," the word is not decorative — it marks the floor of a legal sufficiency standard. Researchers who skim past it miss the operative standard being applied.
Why It Matters in Research
The obsolete proper-noun meaning is the primary trap for historical researchers. In older reports of ejectment actions, seeing a defendant named "Some" or a variant should trigger recognition of the fictional pleading structure of the old action rather than confusion about the identity of a real party. The entire ejectment fiction — John Doe, Richard Roe, the casual ejector, the landlord made defendant by consent rule — was a baroque procedural system that occupied a significant portion of early common-law real property litigation. Black's brief note that "Some" is "no longer invoked" understates how thoroughly this entire apparatus was swept away; researchers looking at pre-nineteenth-century English reports or early American reports from states that retained common-law forms will encounter these names regularly.
In the modern corpus, the quantitative sense matters most in administrative law, constitutional law, and evidence research. Phrases like "some evidence," "some basis in fact," and "some rational relationship" are recurring legal standards each with their own doctrinal content. Corpus searches on the bare word "some" will return enormous noise; targeted searches pairing "some" with "evidence," "nexus," "connection," or "basis" will locate the threshold-standard cases efficiently.
Anderson's cross-reference to "NUMBER" signals that the dictionary's drafters treated "some" primarily as a quantitative term and addressed its legal significance under that heading rather than here. Researchers using Anderson's should follow that cross-reference for the substantive treatment.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's second edition dispenses with "some" in a single sentence, focusing exclusively on the obsolete ejectment fiction meaning — a choice that reflects the era's preoccupation with residual common-law forms that were still fresh in the memory of the profession even as they were being abolished. Anderson's declines to define the term substantively at all, redirecting to "NUMBER," which suggests that Anderson treated the quantitative meaning as the legally operative one but did not consider "some" to carry distinct legal content beyond what a general discussion of number and quantity would supply.
Neither source addresses the threshold-standard usage that dominates modern legal significance, which is unsurprising given their dates. The development of "some evidence" as a formal standard of review — in administrative law especially — is a twentieth-century doctrinal elaboration. Historical dictionaries are not useful guides to this usage and should not be relied on for it.
Jurisdictional Note
The abolition of the old ejectment fiction occurred at different times across common-law jurisdictions. English reforms under the Common Law Procedure Act preceded American code-pleading reforms, which were themselves uneven state by state. Researchers working in early American state reports should verify when the relevant jurisdiction abandoned common-law ejectment forms before assuming the fictional party names are anachronistic.