Limitations

Of Actions. The statutory restriction of the time within which action may be brought. Of Criminal Prosecutions. The statutory restriction of the time within which indictment may be found for an offense. Of Estates..A circumscription of the quantity of time comprised in any estate.

1 Prest. Est. 25.

The definition or circumscription, in any conveyance, of the interest which the grantee is intended to take. The term is used by different writers in different senses. Thus, it is used by Lord Coke to denote the express definition of an estate by the words of its creation, so that it cannot endure for any longer time than till the contingency happens upon which the estate is to fail.

Co. Litt. 23b.

In the work of Mr. Sanders on Uses, the term is used, however, in a broader and more general sense, as given in the second definition above.

1 Sanders, Uses (4th Ed.) 121 et seq.

And, indeed, the same writers do not always confine themselves to one use of the term, though the better usage is undoubtedly given by Mr. Stephen in his note below cited.

And see Fearne, Cont. Rem. (Butler's note [n]; 9th Ed.) 10; 1 Steph. Comm. (5th Ed.) 304, note.

For the distinctions between limitations and remainders, see "Conditional Limitation"; "Contingent Remainder." Consult, generally, Angell, Ballantine, and Price, on Limitations; FlintoflF and Washburn on Real Property; Barbour and Bishop on Criminal Law.