severable contract
- noun
- /ˈsɛvərəbəl ˈkɒntrækt/
- Formal
:
contrato divisible
- The court determined that the severable contract allowed the remaining provisions to stay in force despite the breach.
Examples
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Their business dealings relied on a severable contract to minimize risk if either party defaulted on part of the agreement.
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Because the agreement was a severable contract, only the disputed section was affected by the violation.
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This is a severable contract.
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The severable contract allows for flexibility.
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The court found that the agreement was a severable contract, enabling certain clauses to remain valid despite a breach.
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In their negotiations, they prioritized a severable contract to ensure that a minor breach would not jeopardize the entire deal.
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A severable contract can be advantageous because it prevents a single issue from nullifying the whole agreement.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'severable' (able to be separated) with 'contract' (a written agreement), yielding 'a contract that can be divided into parts.' This is a straightforward adjective + noun compositional pattern (though legal in register), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The term severable contract comes from the root sever, which means 'to cut'. Imagine a long agreement made of parts you can 'cut apart'. So a severable contract means a problem with one part does not cancel the whole agreement.
