Definition
The decision or award rendered by an umpire in an arbitration proceeding. Umpirage is the product of umpirage authority — it is what the umpire produces when called upon to resolve a deadlock between arbitrators who have failed to agree.
The term operates in a specific procedural context: when a dispute is submitted to two or more arbitrators and those arbitrators cannot reach a unanimous or majority award within the prescribed time, the submission agreement typically designates a third person — the umpire — whose decision resolves the matter. That final decision is the umpirage.
Although "umpirage" has a technically distinct meaning from "award," the terms are used interchangeably in practice. The historical sources confirm this: "award" is routinely applied to the umpire's decision even though, strictly speaking, an award belongs to arbitrators and umpirage belongs to the umpire.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The office (or term of office) of an umpire.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The office of an umpire; the power, right, or authority of an umpire to decide. Also, the act of umpiring; arbitrament.
In ordinary English, "umpirage" refers to the role or function of an umpire — the position itself, or the authority it carries. In legal usage, the term shifts from the office to the output: umpirage is not the umpire's authority but the umpire's decision. A researcher encountering "umpirage" in a legal source should read it as the equivalent of an award, not as a description of the umpire's role.
Common Confusion
UMPIRAGE vs. AWARD: These terms describe the same type of binding dispute-resolution output but originate from different procedural roles. An award is issued by arbitrators; an umpirage is issued by an umpire. In practice, courts and commentators have long applied "award" to cover both, which means historical sources — and modern cases — may use "award" when describing what is technically an umpirage. The distinction matters when interpreting a submission agreement or challenging a decision on procedural grounds, since the rules governing arbitrators and umpires may differ.
UMPIRAGE vs. ARBITRAMENT: Arbitrament is a broader term referring to the power or decision of any arbitral tribunal. Umpirage is the narrower, specific output of the umpire function within that framework.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with arbitration materials across historical periods will encounter umpirage most often in older English and American sources predating the consolidation of arbitration law. The term largely disappeared from standard legal vocabulary as modern arbitration statutes (beginning with the English Arbitration Act 1889 and later the U.S. Federal Arbitration Act of 1925) standardized terminology around "award" without preserving the umpire/arbitrator linguistic distinction.
Three research traps to watch for:
First, older submission agreements and court opinions will use "award" to describe both the arbitrators' decision and the umpire's decision interchangeably, making it necessary to read the procedural context to determine which mechanism actually produced the decision being discussed.
Second, the umpire function described in these sources is structurally different from how the word "umpire" appears in modern commercial arbitration rules, where a third arbitrator may function as a tiebreaker rather than a separately invoked decision-maker. The classical umpire was called in only after the arbitrators had failed; a modern third arbitrator may participate throughout. This distinction affects how umpirage-era case law translates to contemporary disputes.
Third, the term appears in insurance arbitration contexts — particularly reinsurance — where umpire mechanisms have survived in practice longer than in general commercial arbitration. Researchers in insurance law will find "umpirage" active in materials well into the twentieth century.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five historical sources agree on the core definition without meaningful divergence: umpirage is the decision of an umpire. Burrill and Bouvier offer the most compressed versions. Black's (both editions) adds the key practical note that "award" is commonly applied to the umpire's decision as well, flagging the interchangeability problem directly.
Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most procedurally rich context, describing the standard submission structure — arbitrators appointed, failure to agree triggers the umpire mechanism, umpire's decision binds the parties — and citing Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 16) as authority. This situates umpirage squarely within the classical English arbitration framework that American law inherited.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the trajectory of the term's decline as statutory arbitration regimes absorbed and standardized the umpire function under the general vocabulary of "award." Researchers should not read the confident present-tense treatment in these sources as evidence that the term remained active in litigation through the twentieth century.
Jurisdictional Note
Umpirage as a distinct legal term is most at home in English common law jurisdictions and American courts applying pre-statutory arbitration doctrine. Modern U.S. arbitration law under the Federal Arbitration Act does not use the term, though umpire mechanisms remain contractually common in insurance and reinsurance arbitration. English arbitration law similarly absorbed the concept into unified award terminology.