Word.ws English Dictionary

these presents

these presents noun: this document (formerly used in official documents and decrees; now mainly confined to university diplomas).

Noun

these presents pl (plural only)

  1. (archaic, plural, plural-only) This document (formerly used in official documents and decrees; now mainly confined to university diplomas).
    • To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting.1781, Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
    • However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing:—"Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined."1849, Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Origin of these presents

Calque of Latin hae presentes [litterae], literally "these present [letters]" but idiomatically "this present [document]."

Questions about these presents

What does these presents mean?
These presents means this document (formerly used in official documents and decrees; now mainly confined to university diplomas).
What part of speech is these presents?
These presents is a noun.

Words near these presents in the dictionary

  1. thescelosaurs
  2. these
  3. these days
  4. these islands
  5. these ones
  6. these presents
  7. these things happen
  8. these words are not in the Bible
  9. these're
  10. these've
  11. Thesean

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: these presents (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “these presents.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/these_presents. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.