Definition
In law, "tow" operates primarily in maritime and transportation contexts. It refers to the act of pulling or drawing a vessel, vehicle, or other object through water or along a road by means of a line, cable, chain, or mechanical coupling — as well as to the vessel or object being so pulled.
1. (Maritime) A vessel or flotilla of vessels pulled by a tugboat or other powered craft is collectively called a tow. The relationship between the towing vessel and the tow creates specific legal duties regarding navigation, liability for damage, and the safety of third parties.
2. (Transportation/Motor Vehicle) On land, towing refers to the removal or transport of a disabled, illegally parked, or impounded vehicle by a tow truck or wrecker. This context generates a body of statutory law governing consent, fees, storage, and lien rights.
3. (Verb — General) To tow is to draw or haul a vessel or vehicle by an attached line or device, implying physical connection and directional control by the leading craft or vehicle.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To pull something behind one, such as by using a line, chain, or tongue; to aid someone behind by shielding them from wind resistance.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The coarse and broken part of flax or hemp, separated from the finer part by the hatchel or swingle.
The Webster's 1913 entry reflects an entirely distinct word — the fiber material, not the act of pulling — illustrating that English carries two unrelated words spelled identically. Legal researchers encountering "tow" in historical documents dealing with trade or textiles should not assume a maritime or transportation meaning. In legal contexts, however, "tow" almost universally refers to hauling or the object hauled, never the fiber.
Common Confusion
Tow and towage are related but distinct. Towage refers specifically to the service of towing — and, in maritime law, to the contractual relationship and the compensation owed for that service. Tow identifies the thing being pulled or the act itself; towage identifies the legal relationship and the right to payment. Researchers should also distinguish tow from salvage: a vessel under tow by contractual arrangement is not being salvaged. Salvage implies a voluntary rescue of a vessel in peril without a pre-existing agreement; towage is a commercial service rendered under contract.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal significance of "tow" is almost entirely contextual — maritime law and motor vehicle/impoundment law are functionally separate bodies of doctrine that happen to share this term.
In maritime sources, tow and towage generate questions of liability allocation between the towing vessel and the towed vessel. Admiralty doctrine on negligence, unseaworthiness, and in rem claims against the tow as a vessel all attach here. Historical sources in the Law Mind corpus dealing with admiralty, navigation, or shipping contracts will use the term in this technical sense.
In motor vehicle law — a largely 20th-century development — tow appears in statutes governing non-consensual towing, towing liens, abandoned vehicle procedures, and consumer protection requirements for towing operators. These statutes are highly jurisdictional and proliferated after the 1980s; researchers should not expect historical legal dictionaries to address this body of law.
One navigational trap: the word "tow" in 18th- and 19th-century legal documents may appear in the fiber/textile sense (as in "tow cloth" or "tow linen") in commercial and probate records. Context — especially surrounding terms like "hemp," "flax," "cloth," or "spinning" — distinguishes the commodity meaning from the transportation meaning.
The Burrill entry in the Law Mind corpus does not contain a substantive entry for tow as an independent headword, which is consistent with the term's relatively operational (rather than doctrinal) character in early legal literature. Researchers relying solely on historical dictionaries will need to supplement with admiralty treatises and, for motor vehicle towing, modern statutory compilations.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary does not provide a standalone entry for "tow" in the sense of pulling or hauling. The source material available reflects Burrill's treatment of "touching" concepts in pleading (touchauntz), which is unrelated. This absence is itself informative: the term's legal significance was understood as derivative of its plain meaning and did not require specialized legal definition in the classical dictionary tradition. Admiralty treatises — rather than general law dictionaries — were the primary venue for working out the legal duties incident to towing relationships.
Jurisdictional Note
Maritime towing law is governed primarily by federal admiralty jurisdiction in the United States, making it relatively uniform across states. Non-consensual vehicle towing, by contrast, is extensively regulated by state statute and local ordinance, with significant variation in fee caps, notice requirements, lien enforcement procedures, and consumer rights. Researchers should not generalize from one state's towing statutes to another's.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Admiralty and Maritime Law (for towage contracts, maritime liability, and the tow/salvage distinction); Personal Property and Possession (for vehicle impoundment, towing liens, and possessory rights over towed property).