devise

A testamentary gift of real estate. 57 Am J1st Wills § 1399. Sometimes used loosely to include a testamentary gift of either personalty or real estate, but by the weight of authority, when used in a statute, the word is to be given its technical meaning and is held to apply only to real property, unless it clearly appears that the intention of the legislature was otherwise. 57 Am J1st Wills § 1400. The meaning restricted to real estate, however, will not prevail against language in the will which indicates the testator's intention to include personal property despite his use of the term "devise." 57 Am J1st Wills § 1400. Although in their technical sense the words "devise" and "bequest are generally applied to the testamentary disposition of real and personal properly respectively, a nonlapse statute providing that the lineal descendants of a "devisee" shall take the estates given by the will "in the same manner as the devisee would have done had he survived the testor" will be interpreted as including bequests of personalty as well as devises of realty where the legislature has in other statutes used the terms in a non-technical sense, where the evident legislative intent is to carry out the will of the testator, and where an intent to dispose of realty and personalty on the same basis appears in the will. Hoellinger v Molzhon. 77 ND 108, 41 NW2d 217, 19 ALR2d 1147.