Definition
Words of purchase are the words in a deed or conveyance that designate the person or persons who are to receive the estate being granted — that is, who takes the property by virtue of the conveyance itself. They stand in contrast to words of limitation, which do not identify a new taker but instead define the nature and duration of the estate granted to the named recipient.
In the traditional grammar of a conveyance, a grant "to A and his heirs" divides into two functional parts: "to A" are words of purchase (they identify A as the taker), while "and his heirs" are words of limitation (they define the quantum of estate — a fee simple — that A receives). A's heirs take nothing directly by the instrument; they receive only by descent if A dies without otherwise disposing of the property.
The word "purchase" in this context carries its older technical legal meaning: acquisition of an estate by any means other than descent from an ancestor. Any person who takes by deed, will, or gift — as opposed to inheriting by operation of law — is said to take by purchase, and the operative words that accomplish that transfer are words of purchase.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Purchase" ordinarily means the acquisition of something by paying money or other consideration; a transaction of buying and selling.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defined purchase primarily as "the act of seeking, getting, or obtaining anything," and in its commercial sense as obtaining property by paying a price.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is substantial and historically consequential. In ordinary modern usage, "purchase" implies a commercial transaction involving money. In property law, "purchase" has long included gifts, devises, and any conveyance — any acquisition not by descent. Words of purchase therefore have nothing to do with price paid; a donee receiving a gift by deed takes by "purchase" in the legal sense just as fully as a buyer who pays full market value.
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Common Confusion
Words of purchase are frequently confused with words of limitation, and the distinction is one of the more tested concepts in traditional estates analysis. Words of limitation do not identify a new taker — they define the estate granted to the taker already identified. In "to A for life, remainder to B and his heirs," both "to A" and "to B" are words of purchase (each designates a taker by the instrument); "for life" limits A's estate; "and his heirs" limits B's estate to a fee simple. The heirs of B named in that phrase are not takers under the deed — they take nothing by purchase, only potentially by descent. Conflating these two categories led historically to serious errors in construing the scope of estates conveyed.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to the historical law of real property and estates. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century deeds, treatises on conveyancing, or cases construing the creation of future interests will encounter it regularly. Its practical importance declined as jurisdictions modernized their conveyancing statutes and as courts moved away from strict formal requirements for creating fee simple estates — most U.S. jurisdictions no longer require words of limitation ("and his heirs") to pass a fee simple, making the sharp distinction between words of purchase and words of limitation less operationally critical in modern drafting.
However, the distinction remains essential for interpreting older instruments. A researcher construing an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century deed must understand exactly which words identified a taker and which words defined what that taker received. Misreading words of limitation as designating additional purchasers — or treating words of purchase as defining the estate rather than the taker — produces fundamental errors in tracing chain of title and understanding what interests were created.
The term also appears in the context of class gifts and remainders. When a deed grants an estate "to the children of A," determining whether those words are words of purchase (identifying a class as takers) and when membership in that class closes are closely related problems. Corpus researchers will find the phrase recurring in treatises on future interests and in equity cases involving trusts and settlements.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence define words of purchase as the words in a conveyance that designate the person to take the estate, as distinguished from words of limitation that define the extent of the estate taken. The definition is clean and consistent with the mainstream of Anglo-American property law commentary.
The same distinction appears in Blackstone's Commentaries and in Littleton's Tenures, where "purchase" is explicitly defined to encompass all acquisitions except descent — a definition that had been settled law long before American codification. Early American treatise writers, including Kent in his Commentaries, preserved this usage without significant modification.
Historical sources are largely in agreement on the core distinction. Where they sometimes diverge is in their treatment of edge cases: whether certain language in a grant operates as a limitation or creates a new purchaser when the instrument is ambiguous, and how courts should handle instruments that omit formal words of limitation altogether. Nineteenth-century American cases show courts wrestling with how far to extend the English rule requiring "and his heirs" for a fee simple, a tension that eventually resolved in favor of statutory reforms presuming fee simple conveyance absent contrary indication.
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Jurisdictional Note
The operative importance of the words-of-purchase / words-of-limitation distinction varies by jurisdiction depending on whether the state has enacted a statute presuming fee simple conveyance absent express limitation. Most U.S. states have done so, softening the common-law rule. Researchers working with Louisiana sources should note that civilian property concepts do not map cleanly onto this common-law vocabulary.
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