Definition
A Latin term meaning "to wit," "that is to say," or "namely." In legal usage, videlicet is a pleading device that introduces a particularizing or specifying statement following a general allegation. When a fact in a pleading is introduced by videlicet — typically abbreviated as "viz." — that fact is said to be "laid under a videlicet." The practical effect is significant: particulars laid under a videlicet need not be proved with strict precision, because the word signals that the following statement is clarifying rather than constitutive. A variance between the videlicet and the proof does not necessarily defeat the pleading, so long as the general allegation preceding it is sustained.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Namely, to wit, that is to say (used when clarifying or naming the preceding item or topic)."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To wit; namely; — often abbreviated to viz."
The common meaning is not wrong, but it understates the legal consequence. In ordinary writing, "viz." simply introduces a clarification. In pleading, placing a fact under a videlicet is a deliberate procedural choice that relaxes the burden of strict proof on that specific particular. The word does not merely clarify — it legally insulates the specified detail from strict variance challenge. That functional distinction is invisible in ordinary usage.
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Common Confusion
Videlicet and scilicet are the two Latin terms most frequently treated as interchangeable in both historical and modern sources. They share the same grammatical role and are often abbreviated the same way in older texts. The historical dictionaries confirm they are "of similar import," and Rapalje & Lawrence cross-references the two without drawing a sharp distinction. In strict classical pleading, however, scilicet was sometimes treated as introducing something already implied or known, while videlicet introduced a particularization of something more openly general. In practice, the distinction rarely determined outcomes, and many courts and treatise writers used the terms synonymously. Researchers should not assume that a source distinguishing the two is doing so with consistent analytical rigor.
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Why It Matters in Research
Videlicet is primarily a term of classical common law pleading and appears most densely in sources predating the merger of law and equity and the adoption of code pleading in the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers working with pleadings, declarations, and indictments in pre-reform English and American materials will encounter it frequently — often only as the abbreviation "viz." — and must recognize it as a structural signal, not mere punctuation.
The key research trap is misreading the scope of the allegation. When a date, place, quantity, or name is laid under a videlicet, courts historically held that a discrepancy between the pleading and the proof on that particularized point was not fatal if the surrounding general allegation was sustained. Failing to notice that a fact is placed under a videlicet can lead a researcher to misread a case as turning on a strict variance when in fact the court was applying the more forgiving videlicet standard.
Jurisdictional divergence matters here. American courts in the nineteenth century were inconsistent about how liberally to apply the videlicet rule, particularly in criminal indictments where the balance between fair notice and technical precision was contested. Cases from Massachusetts, Virginia, and Illinois — all cited in Rapalje & Lawrence — reached varying conclusions about when the videlicet truly shielded a variance.
Under code pleading and modern notice pleading regimes, videlicet has no operative procedural significance. Its appearance in modern documents is almost always a vestige of form language or deliberate archaism. Researchers encountering it in contemporary instruments should treat it as stylistic rather than substantive.
Corpus connections: videlicet interacts closely with pleading doctrines of variance, surplusage, and the distinction between substance and form in allegations. It also appears in instruments such as grants and wills — Rapalje & Lawrence cites separate authority for its use in each — where its presence may signal an attempt to qualify or specify a general conveyance without creating a strict warranty on the particular.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four historical sources agree on the core function: videlicet introduces a particularizing statement and, when a fact is "laid under a videlicet," that fact occupies a different evidentiary posture than a direct allegation. Black's (both editions) articulate this clearly and consistently. Burrill adds the only genuine etymological note worth retaining for research purposes: the term combines videre (to see) and licet (it is permitted), yielding the sense of "it may be seen" or "you may see" — a formulation that explains why the word functions as an invitation to inspect a particular rather than a binding assertion of it.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most useful source for case-level research, providing citations across English and American authority that track disagreements about the videlicet's protective scope, particularly in pleading. That case list, though not exhaustive, maps the contested terrain well.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the transition away from videlicet as operative doctrine under code and notice pleading. They were written within the classical system and do not flag that the term's legal significance was already eroding by the time of their publication. Researchers should not assume that doctrine cited in these entries survived the pleading reforms of the latter half of the nineteenth century without attrition.
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Jurisdictional Note
The videlicet's protective effect in pleading was never uniform across American jurisdictions. English common law courts developed the basic rule, but American courts — particularly in criminal cases — varied in how much latitude they extended when a particularized fact under a videlicet diverged from the proof. States that adopted code pleading early largely rendered the doctrine moot in civil practice, though it persisted longer in criminal indictment practice where technical pleading traditions proved more durable.
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