personal estate
1
6.1
- noun
- /ˈpɜrsənl ɪˈsteɪt/
- Formal
:
patrimonio personal
- No man shall have a larger amercement imposed upon him than his circumstances or personal estate will bear.
Examples
-
The lawyer explained that the personal estate includes all the movable property owned by an individual, unlike real estate.
-
Marshall claimed that this was "a contract, on the faith of which, real and personal estate has been conveyed to the corporation."
Academic text (2016) -
After his passing, his family had to sort through his personal estate to determine what belongings each member would inherit.
-
During the financial planning session, they discussed how to manage his personal estate alongside his investments and savings.
Synonyms
∞
1.4
Something that a person or group owns, for example land and buildings
68
2.8
Things you can move, like cars or jewelry, that belong to one person, not land
33
3.5
Small personal items a person carries, like clothes or jewelry
16
3.1
Things a person owns that can be moved, like furniture or jewelry
3
4.1
Things a person owns, like clothes, money, and furniture
Things a person owns that can be moved, not land or buildings
A thing you own that you can move, like furniture or a car
How Portable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is largely compositional: 'personal' (belonging to an individual) combined with 'estate' (a person's assets) yields the idea of a person's assets or property. However, the precise legal nuance that it specifically refers to movable property (as opposed to real estate) is a domain-specific distinction that a B1 learner would not reliably infer, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Personal estate comes from a simple image: personal means what a person owns and estate means property, so together it pointed to property you could move rather than land. That's why 'movable property' is a clear way to think of personal estate, meaning things like cars, jewelry and furniture.