transfer

transfer vb 1 *move, remove, shift

Analogous words: *carry, convey, transport, transmit: *commit, consign

2 Transfer, convey, alienate, deed are comparable chiefly as legal terms meaning to make over property from one owner to another.

Transfer is the general term; it is applicable when the property is real or personal and when it is passed from one owner to another by a lawful means (as sale, gift, or foreclosure).

Convey stresses the legalistic aspects of the transfer; it is the precise term when a sealed writing or deed plays an essential part in the transfer and is used chiefly of the transfer of real property and of ships.

Alienate is not always clearly distinguished from transfer or convey; in precise legal use, however, it implies the passing of a title by the act of the owner as distinguished from its passing by the operation of the law (as in the case of inheritance by descent)

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entailed property cannot be alienated

}

Alienate, however, may be used when the sale of property is not voluntary but is ordered or enforced by a court (as in foreclosure or in condemnation proceedings). In ordinary nonlegal use alienate often implies diversion (as by force or by a sovereign power or an imperative need)

{

he pleaded for the resumption by clerics of Church revenues alienated into lay hands— Belloc

}

Deed, a popular rather than a technical legal term, is equivalent to convey.