Definition
"Their" is the possessive form of the third-person plural pronoun "they," used in legal instruments to indicate ownership, relation, or attribution by more than one person or entity. In legal drafting and interpretation, the word carries significance beyond ordinary grammar: courts have declined to treat "their" as rigidly demanding plurality, meaning that in the context of a will, deed, or contract, "their" may be construed to refer to a single individual when the instrument's overall intent supports that reading.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Possessive form of "they"; indicating that something belongs to or is associated with multiple persons. (Note: Wiktionary's secondary entry flagging "their" as a misspelling of "there" reflects a common spelling error in informal writing, not a legal or grammatical reality.)
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The possessive case of the personal pronoun they; as, their houses; their country."
The gap between common and legal meaning lies in rigidity. In ordinary English, "their" signals plurality without ambiguity. In legal interpretation — particularly in wills and trusts — courts have found that pronoun number does not always control meaning. When the drafter's intent points clearly to a singular referent, the grammatical expectation of plurality may yield to that intent.
Common Confusion
"Their" is frequently confused with "there" and "they're" in draft instruments and transcribed historical documents. For legal researchers examining manuscript wills, handwritten deeds, or early printed records, a scribal or typographic substitution of one for another can alter apparent meaning. Separately, researchers sometimes assume that "their" in an older instrument necessarily signals multiple beneficiaries or co-owners. As Bouvier's notes, courts have not applied that rule rigidly, and the pronoun alone is not determinative of plurality in interpretive disputes.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research significance of "their" is in will construction and deed interpretation disputes. The rule derived from the case noted in Bouvier's — that courts will not give rigid plural force to "their" in a will — is a narrow but recurring principle in testamentary construction cases. Researchers working in probate records, estate litigation transcripts, or equity court opinions should treat pronoun number as a secondary, not primary, interpretive signal.
In historical instruments, "their" sometimes appeared as a gender-neutral singular — a usage that predates modern singular "they" discourse but parallels it functionally. Researchers encountering phrases like "to the child and their heirs" in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century instruments should not automatically read plurality into the pronoun; the drafter may have been referring to a single, gender-unspecified individual.
The corpus connection to watch: the principle that pronoun number is not rigid tends to appear in appellate opinions reviewing chancery or probate court constructions, not in trial-level records. Researchers using Law Mind to trace the interpretive rule should look upstream from trial documents to appellate opinions and equity treatises where the canon of construction is articulated.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treatment of "their" is brief but pointed: the entry exists specifically to communicate the judicial rule that "their" in a will does not irrebuttably establish that multiple persons are contemplated. Bouvier cites a United States Supreme Court decision (203 U.S. 368) as authority. That reference is to Patch v. White, decided 1906, in which the Court engaged in close construction of testamentary language. The entry reflects the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century willingness of equity courts to subordinate grammatical form to testamentary intent — a principle already well-established in English chancery practice and carried into American probate jurisprudence.
Bouvier's does not address the gender-neutral singular use of "their," which, while present in older legal and literary English, was not a focal point of legal dictionary treatment at the time. Modern researchers should be aware that historical dictionaries will not help them on that dimension; secondary scholarship on pronoun usage in historical legal drafting is more useful there.
Jurisdictional Note
The principle that "their" need not be given rigid plural construction in a will is broadly accepted in American and English probate jurisprudence, but the weight given to grammatical form versus expressed intent varies by jurisdiction and by era. Researchers should not assume that a citation from one state's chancery court applies without qualification in another jurisdiction's probate proceedings.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: CONSTRUCTION OF WILLS; PRONOUNS IN LEGAL INSTRUMENTS