Lexicographical note: cy-pres (very-near)

In the 1994 Civil Code of Quebec, the Quebec legislator innovated by adopting the original appropriated patrimony concept in order to regulate trusts. This notion breaks with classic civil law concepts and almost has nothing to do with the common law trust. This innovation trails in its wake a set of notions, some new, others borrowed, and still others hybrid. In the following paper, our purpose is to underscore the importing into Quebec civil law of a common law term, which in turn was borrowed by common law advocates from medieval French. The term "Cy-pres", when taken literally and metaphorically, designates a power conferred upon the court enabling it to re-direct the purposes of a charitable trust when those initially established have become impossible. Under the common law Doctrine of Cy-pres, the court may re-direct the trust towards another purpose as near as possible to that prescribed by the truster. Be that as it may, this is how cy-pres has made its lexical and conceptual debut in modern-day French via the rear-door entry of Quebec civil law. From the conceptual standpoint, the civil law Cy-pres Doctrine still must be further explored in order to delimit the similitudes and differences with the Doctrine of Cy-pres under the common law.