WARTS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

WARTSAuthored

The Law Mind • 603 words

Definition

In property law, "warts" is an archaic plural noun referring to excrescences or protrusions of the soil — small, irregular elevations of land that deviate from the general surface level of a tract. The term appeared in older conveyancing and land description practice to account for natural surface irregularities included within a grant of land. A conveyance of land "with all warts and appurtenances" or similar formula was understood to pass these surface features along with the principal grant.

The term is encountered almost exclusively in historical land records and conveyancing instruments and carries no operative legal meaning in modern practice.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of wart — small, hard growths on the skin caused by viral infection; by extension, any small, unwanted protrusion or blemish.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A small, dry, hard excrescence on the skin; also, a similar excrescence on the surface of plants or other natural objects.

The legal meaning does not diverge from the common physical sense so much as it narrows and specializes it. In conveyancing contexts, "warts" borrowed the ordinary image of a small protrusion and applied it to surface irregularities of land. A researcher encountering the word in a deed should not read it as metaphorical or colloquial — it was a functional descriptor of what the grant included.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working with colonial-era, early American, or English land records may encounter "warts" as part of habendum or granting clauses in deeds. The term belongs to a family of archaic conveyancing words — alongside "ways, waters, watercourses, commons, and appurtenances" — used to ensure a grant swept in all physical features of a parcel. Missing or misreading this term in a historical deed will not typically affect title analysis in modern practice, but it matters for understanding the intended scope of historical conveyances.

The Rapalje & Lawrence entry does not address "warts" directly as a standalone term; the surrounding dictionary material concerns warranty and breach of warranty, suggesting the source entry for "warts" either appeared in close proximity to warranty entries alphabetically or was embedded within a broader conveyancing discussion. Researchers should be alert to this alphabetical proximity when navigating historical legal dictionaries — "warts" and "warranty" sit near each other, and index-based searches in physical volumes may conflate nearby entries.

No meaningful jurisdictional variation attaches to this term in modern law because it is no longer operative. In historical research, its usage is more characteristic of English common law conveyancing forms than of any particular American jurisdiction, though it appears in early American instruments that borrowed English deed language wholesale.

Historical Dictionary Support

Rapalje & Lawrence does not appear to provide a substantive standalone definition of "warts" as a legal term — the source material supplied falls within warranty-related entries, indicating the term was either treated as self-explanatory or addressed only incidentally. This gap is itself instructive: the historical legal dictionaries of the late nineteenth century did not feel the need to gloss "warts" because its meaning was transparent to contemporary readers trained in conveyancing forms. The term had already begun its retreat from active usage by the time Rapalje & Lawrence was compiled.

Researchers seeking fuller treatment of archaic land description terms in this period should consult Blackstone's Commentaries and older conveyancing manuals such as Sheppard's Touchstone of Common Assurances, where the vocabulary of physical land features in grants receives more systematic treatment.

WARTSmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

(1348) : o possibility could the latter in such a ase claim the land as heir to his younger brother. Litt. § 707. WARRANTY, (what is a breach of). 2 Hen. & M. (Va.) 164. (measure of damages on breach of). 1 Bay (S. C.) 19, 265; 2 McCord (S. C.) 413, 414; 2 Treadw. (S. C.) 584; Cooke (Tenn.) 447; 1 Hen. & M. (Va.) 201; 2 Rand. (Va.) 132. WARRANTY, COVENANT OF, (distinguished from a covenant for quiet enjoyment). I Aiken (Vt.) 233. (runs with the land). 10 Wend. (N. (what is a breach). 1 Mass. 463; 10 3 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 364. 29. Commencing by disseisin.- Where the conveyance to which the warranty was annexed immediately followed • dieseisin, or operated itself as such (as where a father, being tenant for years with remainder to his son in fee, aliened in feeY.) 180. simple with warranty), this was called a Id. 267; warranty commencing by disseisin," and id not bar the heir of the warrantor. 2 117; 8 31. Com. 302. For an instance of a "warWheat. (U. S.) 449. anty paramount," see DERAIGN, 2. (damages recoverable for breach of). 210. The operation of a warranty as against 4 Dall. (U.S.) 442; 3 Mass. 523, 544; 8 Id. 262, e heir of a warrantor, in case the warrantee 263; 8 Pick. (Mass.) 455; Coxe (N. J.) 173; 2 was evicted from the land, was to compel him to yield the warrantee other lands in its stead, to the extent of any land which had descended to him from the ancestor (Co. Litt. 102a); and if he had no land by descent, then he was barred of all claim to the land warranted. This operation, however, was, from time to time, restrained by various statutes, (especially 6 Edw. I. c. 3; 11 Hen. VII. c. 20; 4 and 5 Ann. c. 16; 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 27, § 39; Id. c. 74, 8 14;) and voucher (q. v.), and the writ of warrantia chartæ have been abolished, (Stat. 3 and 4 Will.