Definition
"Ture" is not a recognized independent legal term. The source material attributed to this headword consists of fragments from at least three distinct and unrelated legal entries: (1) a description of the Supreme Court of Judicature created by the English Judicature Acts beginning in 1873; (2) a description of the writ of admeasurement of pasture, a remedy for surcharge of common; and (3) a description of purpresture, the wrongful enclosure of land held in common or encroachment upon a highway or public way.
These are artifacts of dictionary truncation or indexing error — the headword "TURE" does not correspond to any term of art in English, American, or common law tradition. Researchers encountering this headword in a historical legal dictionary should treat it as a corrupted or misindexed entry and consult the actual terms the fragments describe.
The three underlying subjects are:
1. SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (England): The consolidated superior court established by the Judicature Act 1873, reorganized and modified by subsequent acts through 1881, which absorbed the former courts of law, equity, admiralty, probate, and divorce — including the Court of Appeal in Chancery and Bankruptcy and the Exchequer Chamber.
2. ADMEASUREMENT OF PASTURE: A common law remedy available where a right of common of pasture (whether appurtenant, appendant, or in gross) had been surcharged — that is, where more animals were turned out than the right permitted. The sheriff, assisted by a jury, would measure and apportion the common among those entitled.
3. PURPRESTURE: From the Law French pourpris (an enclosure), the wrongful enclosure of land belonging to another, or the encroachment upon land that ought to remain in common. It included erecting a structure or making an enclosure upon any part of a highway, common street, or public water. Treated as a species of nuisance.
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Common Confusion
TURE should not be confused with TENURE, JOINTURE, FORFEITURE, PURPRESTURE, or JUDICATURE, though it may appear as a truncation of any of these in digitized or poorly transcribed historical sources. Researchers who locate "TURE" in a citation or index should check whether the surrounding alphabetical entries suggest which longer term was intended.
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Why It Matters in Research
The entry "TURE" is a research trap, not a research resource. Historical legal dictionaries were typeset manually, and headwords were sometimes truncated, split across pages, or misalphabetized during composition or digitization. When a Law Mind corpus search returns this headword, it signals that the underlying content belongs to one of the three terms identified above. Researchers should pivot immediately to JUDICATURE ACTS, ADMEASUREMENT OF PASTURE (or SURCHARGE OF COMMON), and PURPRESTURE respectively.
Truncation artifacts of this kind are more common in Bouvier's and Burrill's than in Black's, owing to differences in editorial structure and page layout conventions across editions. The fragment from Burrill's is particularly instructive: the visible text blends a definition of purpresture with what appears to be text from a neighboring entry on powers of attorney ("to act for him generally, or to do some... deed, to make a contract"), suggesting a multi-column page where columns have been merged in transcription.
Researchers working in historical equity or property sources should treat any short, apparently meaningless headword ending in "-ure" or "-ture" as a possible truncation of a longer term (purpresture, forfeiture, jointure, divestiture, etc.).
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Historical Dictionary Support
None of the four source dictionaries contains a legitimate entry under "TURE." Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence both appear to carry the opening of a JUDICATURE (or SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE) entry, cut at the point before the full court structure is described. Bouvier's carries two fragments: one opening an ADMEASUREMENT OF PASTURE entry, the other redirecting to JUDICATURE ACTS — itself a separate entry. Burrill's carries what is clearly the beginning of a PURPRESTURE entry, with the etymological note from Law French intact, before the text corrupts into a neighboring column.
No historical dictionary source agrees that "TURE" is itself a term of law. The agreement across sources is negative: the content assigned to this headword belongs elsewhere.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Courts of England (Historical); Common of Pasture; Purpresture; Judicature Acts 1873–1881.
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