Negotiate

1.

To conduct business; and particularly to discuss terms of a bargain; to endeavor to effect a contract.

2.

To transfer, under rules of the commercial law, an evidence of debt or instrument for payment of money, so that the holder's title is independent of any equities existing against the transferrer; to transfer by indorsement. Negotiated is used as the adjective or past participle in both the above senses of the word; a piece of business or a note may be said to have been negotiated. Negotiable and negotiability involve the second meaning only; they signify that an instrument is capable of being transferred so as to be free from any questions between original parties; the quality of being vendible by commercial indorsement. Negotiation is used in both the senses; it may mean either promoting a bargain or contract involving discussion and effort to bring about meeting of minds, or the act or contract of transferring mercantile paper by indorsement, as distinguished from assignment. To negotiate means to conclude by bargain, treaty, or agreement.

Inhabitants of Palmer v. Ferry, 6 Gray, 420.

To negotiate a bill of exchange can only mean to transfer it for value. It is a solecism to say that a bill has been negotiated by a payee who has never parted with its ownership and possession. Blakiston v. Dudley, 5 Duer, 373. "Negotiable" describes that which is capable of being transferred by assignment; a thing which may be transferred by a sale and indorsement, or delivery. This negotiable quality transfers the debt from the party to whom it was originally owing to the holder, when the instrument is properly indorsed, so as to enable the latter to sue in his own name either the maker of a promissory note, or the acceptor of a bill of exchange, and the other parties to such instruments, such as the drawer of a bill or the indorser of a bill or note, unless the holder has been guilty of laches in giving the required notice. It must, however, be payable to order or bearer, and, at all events, in money only, and not out of any particular fund. "Negotiable at the bank of Washington" is not a note payable at that bank; "negotiable" does not mean "payable."

Seeding v. Thornton, 3 Cranch C. Ct. 698.

Negotiation, as used by writers upon mercantile law, means the act by which a bill of exchange or promissory note is put into circulation, by being passed by one of the original parties to another person.

Walker v. Ocean Bank, 19 Ind. 247.