(verb) – To finish, terminate, complete, wind up; as, to “close” an account, a bargain, an estate, or public books, such as tax books. Patton v. Ash, 7 Serg. & It (Pa.) 116; Coleman v. Garrigues, 18 Barb. (N. Y.) 67; Clark v. New York, 13 N. Y. St. Rep. 292; Bilafsky v. Abraham, 183 Mass. 401, 67 N. E. 818 To shut up, so as to prevent entrance or access by any person; as in statutes requiring saloons to be “closed” at certain times, which further implies an entire suspension of business.
(noun) – A portion of land, as a field, inclosed, as by a hedge, fence, or other visible inclosure. 3 Bl. Comm. 209. The interest of a person in any particular piece of ground, whether actually inclosed or not Locklin v. Casler, 50 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 44; Meade v. Watson, 67 Cal. 591, 8 Pac. 311; Matthews v. Treat, 75 Me. 600; Wright v. Bennett, 4 111. 258; Blakeney v. Blakeney, 6 Port. (Ala.) 115, 30 Am. Dec. 574. The noun “close,” in its legal sense, imports a portion of land inclosed, but not necessarily inclosed by actual or visible barriers. The invisible, ideal boundary, founded on limit of title, which surrounds every man’s land, constitutes it his close, irrespective of walls, fences, ditches, or the like. In practice. The word means termination ; winding up. Thus the close of the pleadings is where the pleadings are finished, i.e., when issue has been joined.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
Signifies the interest in the soil, and not merely a close or enclosure in the common acceptation of the term. 2. In every case where one man has a right to exclude another from his land, the law encircles it, if not already enclosed, with an imaginary fence; and entitles him to a compensation in damages for the injury he sustains by the act of another passing through his boundary, denominating the injurious act a breach of the enclosure. 3. An ejectment will not lie for a close.