Chattel Article Property Chat L Noun Law Movable Personal

noun

1. Law. A movable article of personal property.

2. Any article of tangible property other than land, buildings, and other things annexed to land.

3. A slave.

[Chattel came to English in the 1400s and shares a root with the word cattle.]

"Mr. Price has instructed me to visit with you and make arrangements for a transfer of chattel to the bank sufficient to cover the amount of "—he looked down at his clipboard— "one thousand dollars even." - Will Weaver, Red Earth White Earth, 1986

But now! Gervase himself had not seemed a very important part of that triumph a little while ago. He had been a chattel of hers, a piece of property as much her own as her parasol. - Margaret Oliphant, The Cuckoo in the Nest, 1892