Simple English definitions for legal terms
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Term: FORTY
Definition: Forty is an old-fashioned way of measuring land. It means a square piece of land that is forty acres in size. To figure out a forty, you would take a section of land that is 640 acres and divide it into quarters. Then, you would take one of those quarters and divide it into quarters again. This would give you a forty.
Definition: Forty acres of land in the form of a square. To determine a forty, a section of land (640 acres) was quartered, and one of those quarters was again quartered.
Example: The south forty.
Explanation: In the past, land was often divided into sections of 640 acres. To determine a forty, one of those sections was quartered, resulting in a square plot of land that was forty acres in size. The example "the south forty" refers to a specific forty-acre plot of land located in the southern part of a larger section.