Literae mortuae
A Dictionary of Law · Henry Campbell Black · 1891
A Dictionary of Law
Dead letters; fulfilling words of a statute. Lord Bacon observes that “there are in every statute certain words which are as veins, where the life and blood of the statute cometh, and where all donbts do arise, and the rest are litere mortue@, fulfilling words.”
Bae. St. Uses, (Works, iv. 189.)