Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A common-law action to recover damages for property illegally withheld or wrongfully converted to use by another.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Properly, the finding of anything; specifically, in law:
  • noun the gaining possession of personal property, whether by finding or otherwise
  • noun a common-law action for damages for the wrongful taking or detention of goods from the possession of another.

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

  • noun The gaining possession of any goods, whether by finding or by other means.
  • noun An action to recover damages against one who found goods, and would not deliver them to the owner on demand; an action which lies in any case to recover the value of goods wrongfully converted by another to his own use. In this case the finding, though alleged, is an immaterial fact; the injury lies in the conversion.

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

  • noun law Taking possession of personal property which has been found.
  • noun law A legal action brought to recover such property by its original owner.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Anglo-Norman, to compose, invent, find, probably from Vulgar Latin *tropāre; see troubadour.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Nominal use of Old French trover ("to find").

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