Definition
A Latin term appearing in civil law and old English law signifying time, a limited period of time, or a prescribed season. TEMPUS functions primarily as a building block in compound legal phrases rather than as a standalone legal concept. Its legal force derives from context: it may refer to time in the abstract, a defined term within which legal rights must be exercised, or a specific seasonal period recognized by law.
The term appears most often in two distinct registers:
1. Time as a limitation on rights. TEMPUS names the period within which an obligation, action, or right exists. Once that period expires, the right may be extinguished — a principle the sources connect to the maxim that time runs against those who neglect their rights.
2. Time as a defined season. In forest law and related English usage, TEMPUS could denote a recognized seasonal period, as in TEMPUS PESSONIS (mast time in the forest), a period during which tenants held rights to pannage or other forest privileges.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Tempus" in English appears almost exclusively as a learned borrowing, retained in phrases such as "tempus fugit" (time flies). As an English word it is uncommon outside classical or literary contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's treats "tempus" as a Latin word rather than an English one, entering it only in the context of Latin grammatical and musical terminology (time or tense).
The gap between common and legal meaning is not one of semantic contradiction but of precision. Where the layperson encounters "tempus" as an evocative phrase about time's passage, the legal sources use it as a technical counter denoting a bounded, actionable period — one whose start, duration, and expiration carry legal consequence.
Common Confusion
TEMPUS is sometimes treated as interchangeable with DIES (day) or TERMINUS (end-point or boundary of a term). The distinction matters: DIES marks a specific day; TERMINUS marks the endpoint or boundary of a period; TEMPUS names the period itself. Conflating TEMPUS with TERMINUS misreads the structure of time-limitation arguments in civil law sources, where the character of the period — whether continuous or useful — determines when and whether it runs.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
TEMPUS CONTINUUM. A continuous or absolute period. Begins running from a specified event regardless of whether the person entitled has knowledge of that event. Once begun, every day counts, including days on which the party could not act.
TEMPUS UTILE. A useful or profitable period. Counted only on days when the entitled party could actually exercise the right. Days on which action was legally or practically impossible are not charged against the period.
TEMPUS PESSONIS. Mast time in the forest. A recognized seasonal period in English forest law during which pannage rights and related privileges were exercisable.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter TEMPUS most often not as a headword but embedded in Latin maxims and civil law passages that underlie common law limitations doctrine. Two research traps are worth flagging.
First, the continuum/utile distinction is critical for reading civil law sources on prescription and limitation. Historical English and American courts borrowed this framework when characterizing how limitation periods ran, and misreading which type of tempus a source is invoking distorts the argument being made.
Second, NULLUM TEMPUS OCCURRIT REGI — no time runs against the king — is the most consequential phrase in the TEMPUS family for common law research. Anderson's entry connects this directly to the sovereign immunity from statutes of limitations. Researchers working on governmental limitations issues, adverse possession claims against the state, or laches defenses against public bodies should trace this maxim carefully: it was a live principle in English common law, was imported into American practice, and has been substantially modified by statute in most jurisdictions. The phrase appears in older American cases with some frequency, and its scope in any given jurisdiction depends on whether and how the legislature has waived it.
Third, in forest law and manorial records, TEMPUS appears as a seasonal marker with property-law consequences. Researchers in legal history working with medieval or early modern English sources should treat TEMPUS in those contexts as a term of art requiring knowledge of the specific forest custom involved.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on the core meaning — time, a limited period — but vary in emphasis and depth.
Burrill's is the most useful for research purposes, providing the Fleta passage that anchors the connection between TEMPUS and limitations doctrine: "time is a means of removing obligations and actions, because time runs against the slothful and those who are neglectful of their right." This Fleta reference (lib. 4, c. 5, § 12) is genuine and gives researchers a traceable civil law-to-English law transmission point.
Black's second edition adds the TEMPUS CONTINUUM definition with its key operational rule — running from the event regardless of knowledge, with all days counted — which the first edition's truncated entry lacks. Researchers relying solely on the first edition will miss this distinction.
Anderson's distinguishes itself by centering the NULLUM TEMPUS maxim and noting the sixty-year possession qualification that English law developed as a practical ceiling even for the Crown. This is a signal that the sovereign immunity from limitations was never absolute in practice, even before statutory modification.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underemphasize is the TEMPUS UTILE counterpart to TEMPUS CONTINUUM. Burrill and Black acknowledge TEMPUS CONTINUUM but do not develop TEMPUS UTILE with comparable clarity, which creates a gap for researchers trying to reconstruct civil law limitation arguments in English or early American sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The NULLUM TEMPUS doctrine has been substantially eroded in American jurisdictions by statute. Most states now include governmental entities within general statutes of limitations or have enacted specific limitation periods for state actions. Researchers should not assume the common law rule survives in any given jurisdiction without checking current statutory text.