Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating or pertaining to a will or wills; also, relating to administration of the estates of deceased persons.
  • Given or bequeathed by will.
  • Set forth or contained in a will.
  • Done or appointed by, or founded on, a last will or testament: as, testamentary guardians (that is, guardians appointed by testament or will).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to a will, or testament.
  • adjective Bequeathed by will; given by testament.
  • adjective Done, appointed by, or founded on, a testament, or will.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective law Of or pertaining to a will or testament.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to a will or testament or bequeathed by a will or testament

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin testamentarius ("of or belonging to wills").

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Examples

  • Women on the southern Avalon, then, were a substantial presence as beneficiaries in testamentary documents of the study period.

    Gutenber-e Help Page 2005

  • It makes a frequent appearance in testamentary directives.

    Delete, Baby, Delete 2002

  • In the interest of the late Horace Bishop Lindly, application for probate of will as a muniment of title testamentary by Hershel Lindly.

    The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:Today's Headlines 2009

  • The form, technically called a "testamentary letter" or "letter of final instruction," isn't a formal legal document but can help your family navigate your assets—including those on the Internet.

    PINs That Needle Families Kelly Greene 2011

  • We have lost all proportion to the other great states of the earth, and this thanks only to the positively catastrophic leadership of our nation in the field of foreign affairs, thanks to our total failure to be guided by what I should almost call a testamentary aim in foreign policy, and thanks to the loss of any healthy instinct and impulse of self-preservation.

    Mein Kampf Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945 1925

  • Depending on the needs of high-net-worth individuals, Mr. Golombek also favours certain trusts - namely testamentary and family trusts - both to minimize taxes in the event of their death and to control how money is spent by heirs, particularly in situations where younger children stand to inherit large estates.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Chris Atchison 2010

  • The next piece is a kind of testamentary paper, addressed 'To ----,' a friend, we presume, containing his wishes as to what his friend should do for him when he (the poet) shall be dead -- not, as we shall see, that he quite thinks that such a poet can die outright.

    Early Reviews of English Poets John Louis Haney

  • Testamentary capacity thus does not mean merely capacity to make a will; it also means capacity to take for oneself, or for the father or master in whose power one is, under the will of another person: and this latter kind of testamentary capacity is quite independent of the capacity to make a will oneself.

    The Institutes of Justinian John Baron Moyle 1891

  • As there were certain classes of persons to whom testators were unable to leave inheritances or legacies, when they wished to effect these objects they used to trust to the good faith of some one who had this kind of testamentary capacity, and whom they asked to give the inheritance, or the legacy, to the intended beneficiary; hence the name 'trusts,' because they were not enforced by legal obligation, but only by the transferor's sense of honesty.

    The Institutes of Justinian John Baron Moyle 1891

  • The Norman Foundation began as an act of testamentary generosity by Aaron E. Norman at the end of his seventy-six-year life of success and concern for people who lacked economic and/or political control over their lives.

    Frank A. Weil: A Note of Interest Concerning Family Philanthropy Frank A. Weil 2012

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