Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "let it be forbidden" or "be it prohibited." In legal usage, *vetitum sit* functions as a prohibitory clause in writs, orders, or injunctions, operating as the operative words of prohibition in a formal legal instrument. The clause directs that a named act, transaction, or conduct shall be forbidden — typically addressed to a party or officer and carrying the force of a court's command.
The phrase is most closely associated with early English equity and common law practice, where formal writs relied on precise Latin formulaic language to define their operative effect. In instruments of this kind, *vetitum sit* signals the moment of prohibition — the point at which the writ or order passes from recitation into command.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a relic of Latin writ practice and will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal records, early equity proceedings, and treatises reproducing or analyzing writ forms. Researchers working in Chancery records, Year Books, or early common law reports should recognize it as an operative clause rather than a term of art with its own developed doctrine.
The most important navigational point: *vetitum sit* is not a standalone cause of action, writ type, or legal concept. It is a clause *within* an instrument. When encountered in historical sources, the researcher's task is to identify the enclosing instrument — the writ or order of which this is a part — rather than to analyze the phrase in isolation.
Burrill's citation trail (Dyer 104b; 1 P. Wms. 226; 2 Vern. 498) points to English case law from the sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries. Dyer's *Reports* (mid-sixteenth century) and the Vernon and Williams reports (late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries) are the core corpus here. These are equity and common law reports from a period when Latin formulary was still standard. The phrase is unlikely to appear in American legal materials except in early colonial or federal period documents closely imitating English writ practice, and even there it would be unusual.
Researchers working in Law Mind sources should be alert to the fact that *vetitum sit* may appear without explanation in older digests and abridgments, simply embedded in writ text. When it surfaces, it typically confirms that the document in question is a prohibitory order — either a writ of prohibition, a ne exeat, or an injunction in its early equity form.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is spare to the point of being a pure pointer entry: it offers no independent definition, directing the reader instead to three case citations. This is characteristic of Burrill's treatment of Latin formulaic phrases that had fixed meaning by convention rather than contested interpretation — the phrase carried its own meaning within the profession, and elaboration was unnecessary for its intended audience.
The three citations Burrill supplies cluster around equity practice. Dyer 104b situates the phrase in mid-Tudor common law; the Vernon and Williams reports bring it forward into early eighteenth-century Chancery. This span suggests the clause had durable use across nearly two centuries of English practice before falling away with the decline of Latin writ forms.
No other standard historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — not Bouvier, not Black's early editions — carry a dedicated entry for this phrase, which underscores its status as a formulary element rather than a jurisprudential concept. The absence is itself informative: *vetitum sit* was never controversial enough, or independent enough, to require doctrine-building.
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Jurisdictional Note
This phrase belongs to English common law and equity writ practice. It has no recognized independent role in American law and is not part of any modern procedural vocabulary. Researchers will not encounter it in contemporary American jurisdictions except as historical quotation.
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