Forms: 3 chatel, chetel, 6 chatel, -ell, 6–7 chattell, 6– chattel. [a. OF. chatel, chetel (ONF. catel, Pr. captal, capdal):—late L. captāle, L. capitāle principal, property, goods, etc.: see CATTLE. Chatel, pl. chateux, was the form adopted in legal Anglo-French; it appears in vernacular use in the 13th c., and the pl. chateux is occasional as a technical term in ME.; but the actual form adopted in Eng. was the Norman catel, later cattell, cattle. In the 16th c. (as shown under CATTLE) this was gradually restricted to ‘live stock,’ and at the same time chatel, chattel, began to pass from law French into general use for the wider sense ‘article of property.’]
I. Collective senses. Obs.
† 1. Property; goods; money; = CATTLE 1. Obs.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 224. To dealen his feder chetel to neodfule.
a. 1240. Wohunge, in Cott. Hom., 271. Aihwer wið chatel mon mai luue cheape.
1440. Paston Lett., 27, I. 41. All maner of chattell to the seide John Lyston apperteynyng, arn acruwyd on to the Kyng.
† 2. Capital, principal. Obs.
1506. Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W.), IV. xxi. 227. The chatell that is the somme gyuen … and the gayne … In puttynge the gayne & chatel in certayne.
† 3. Live stock; = CATTLE. Obs. rare.
[Apparently an attempt to extend the ch- form to all senses of the earlier catel, cattell.]
1627. Drayton, Agincourt, 85. Nor neuer leaue till they their Chattell cleare.
1696. De La Pryme, Diary, 78. Chattel eats turneps in this country better than they’ll do hay.
II. As an individual sb. with plural.
4. A movable possession; any possession or piece of property other than real estate or a freehold. (Generally in plural. Cf. CHATEUS.)
1549. Will, in Boorde’s Introd. Knowl. (1870), Introd. 73. Also I giue and bequeth all my chattelles and houses lying abowte Wynchester vnto Richard Mathew.
1592. West, Symbol., I. I. § 23. All goods, chattels immouable, bondmen, and other things not being by Law prohibited may be sold.
a. 1626. Fletcher, Nice Valour, IV. i. A rich uncle died, and left me chattels.
1642. Prynne, Sov. Antid., iii. 14. So if Subsidies be granted, and the King dye before they are levyed, his Executors shall not enjoy them, though a chattle; but his Successor.
1826. Scott, Woodst., ii. Deliver up to me the chattels of the Man Charles Stewart.
1837. Syd. Smith, Lett., Wks. 1859, II. 263/2. It is an absolute chattel, which, like any other chattel, is part of the Archbishop’s assets … and within the memory of man such options have been publicly sold by auction.
1845. Polson, in Encycl. Metrop., 834/1. A sale of goods generally, as distinguished from the sale of a specific chattel.
1883. G. Lloyd, Ebb & Flow, II. 242. Frank’s sketch-book, and some other precious chattels.
b. In Law distinguished as chattel personal, and chattel real: see the quots.
1552. Huloet, Chatelles personalles … Chatels reall.
1616. Bullokar, Chattels reall are leases or wards. Chattels personall are all moueable goods, as money, plate, cattell.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 199. Of chattels personals.
1651. W. G., trans. Cowel’s Inst., 26. All moveable Goods (which by us are tearmed personall Chattells) which the Wife brings … do presently passe into the husbands Patrimony.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. 386. Chattels real … are such as concern … the realty; as terms for years of land, wardships in chivalry … next presentation to a church.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., v. § 1. 208. Thus leasehold interests came to be classed with personal property. Since however they are rights over things immoveable, they received the mongrel name of ‘chattels real.’
c. Goods and chattels: a comprehensive phrase for all kinds of personal property. (Cf. CATTLE 3).
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 505. The custodie, not of the landes onely … but of the goods and chattels also.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., III. ii. 232. I will be master of what is mine owne, Shee is my goods, my chattels, she is my house.
1660. Trial Regic., 35. If you finde that he is guilty, you shall enquire, what Goods, and Chattels he had.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. iii. 89/314. For he, in all his amorous battles, No ’dvantage finds like goods and chattels.
1761. Hume, Hist. Eng., I. viii. 174. All his goods and chattels were confiscated.
1788. J. Powell, Devises (1827), II. 99. All the residue of his goods and chattels, personal estate and effects whatsoever.
1848. Lytton, Harold, III. ii. Part of his goods and chattels.
d. transf. and fig.
1786. Cowper, Gratitude, 50. Compassed about with the goods And chattels of leisure and ease.
1824. Syd. Smith, Wks., 1859, II. 194/1. Originality and vigour of mind, which are the best chattels and possessions of the world.
e. Used (chiefly rhetorically, by emancipation writers and others) of slaves or bondmen.
1649. Milton, Tenure Kings, 11. To make the subject no better then the Kings slave, his chattell, or his possession that may be bought and sold.
1753. Richardson, Grandison (ed. 7), V. 263. Does he not by this step make me his Chattles, a piece of furniture only, to be removed … at his pleasure.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. 93.
1822. Genius of Universal Emancipation, I. No. 11. 169/2. They … consign them and their offspring to perpetual involuntary slavery;… declaring these persons and their posterity to be good saleable property in common with other goods and chattels.
1832. Austin, Jurispr. (1879), I. xv. 400. Much eloquent indignation has … been vented superficiously on the application of the term chattel to the slaves in the English colonies: seeing that the term chattel … [imports] that the rights of the master over his slave … devolve on his intestacy to a certain class of his representatives.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., ii. 28. To see what this intelligent chattel had been about.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, xix. 391. The chief traffic was in human chattels.
5. Comb., chattel-interest, an interest in leasehold property.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. 173. That by this means a remainder may be limited of a chattel interest, after a particular estate for life created in the same.
1788. J. Powell, Devises (1827), II. 35. Where the portion of real estate left undisposed of is a chattel interest, it devolves upon the heir as personal estate.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., v. § 1. 206. A leasehold, or, as it is often called, a chattel interest in land. Ibid., § 2. 216. There can be no estate tail in a chattel interest, such as a term of years.
