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The etymology of the "real" in real estate is very traceable and clear. real: late Middle English (as a legal term meaning ‘relating to things, especially real
by ajcp 3y ago
The etymology of the "real" in real estate is very traceable and clear.
real: late Middle English (as a legal term meaning ‘relating to things, especially real property’): from Anglo-Norman French, from late Latin realis, from Latin res ‘thing’.
An "estate" writ large is many things, including social and economic relationships, contracts, and instruments that are more ideas and behaviors than an actual "thing". Real in the sense of "real estate" means the physical part of an estate; the "things" you can touch. The real in real estate is not denoting what is the actual, *realized* value of the estate, which I think is what you're intimating.
- aragonite 3y agoRight. Real in this sense is opposed to personal. So you have legal distinctions between real action and personal action, in personem and in rem etc. It's tied to the fundamental distinction between a person and a thing, between who and what. What's not "real" in this sense isn't necessarily not "real" in the familiar everyday sense.