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The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Next is only an abbreviation of the word "nearest."
1 Coll. C. C. 9; 13 L. J. Ch. 147; 36 L. J. Ch. 793; L. R. 4 Eq. 359.
It means nearest or nighest; not in the sense of propinquity alone, as, for example, three persons on three chairs, one in the midst, those on each side of the middle one are equally near, each "next" to the center one. But it signifies also order, or succession, or relation as well as propinquity.
27 L. J. Ch. 654.