What is "abstract of title"

Abstract \Ab"stract`\, n. [See Abstract, a.]

1. That which comprises or concentrates in itself the essential qualities of a larger thing or of several things. Specifically: A summary or an epitome, as of a treatise or book, or of a statement; a brief.

   An abstract of every treatise he had read.
   --Watts.

   Man, the abstract Of all perfection, which the workmanship Of Heaven hath modeled.
   --Ford.

2. A state of separation from other things; as, to consider a subject in the abstract, or apart from other associated things.

3. An abstract term.

   The concretes ``father'' and ``son'' have, or might have, the abstracts ``paternity'' and ``filiety.''
   --J. S. Mill.

4. (Med.) A powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance mixed with sugar of milk in such proportion that one part of the abstract represents two parts of the original substance.

   Abstract of title (Law), an epitome of the evidences of ownership.

   Syn: Abridgment; compendium; epitome; synopsis. See Abridgment.

n. (context legal real estate English) An epitome of the evidences of ownership; the condensed history of title to a particular parcel of real estate, with encumberances.