negotium

Negotium is a Latin noun that generally means business, affair, or matter. In classical and medieval usage, it designates a task or activity that occupies one’s time beyond leisure (otium). The term is the linguistic root of several modern words such as negotiate and negotiation, which retain the sense of transacting or dealing in business.

In Roman law, negotium refers to a legal act or transaction that has juridical effects, such as a contract, mandate, or other binding arrangement. The concept contrasts with mere facts or events that do not by themselves create rights or obligations. As a category, negotium helps explain how Roman and later civil-law systems classify acts intended to produce legal relations.

A closely related topic is negotiorum gestio, the management of another person’s affairs without authorization. Under this doctrine, the manager may incur obligations or be entitled to compensation to protect the interests of the represented party, even though the act was undertaken without explicit permission.

Etymology traces negotium to Latin negōtium, literally “not leisure,” reflecting the idea that business interrupts leisure time. Over time, the term’s legal sense broadened in scholarship and in the vocabulary of English, influencing words such as negotiation and negotiate while also serving as a historical concept in civil-law studies.

In contemporary legal theory, negotium remains a scholarly reference point for distinguishing juridical acts that create or modify rights from mere factual occurrences. It is principally of historical and comparative interest, illustrating how ancient and civil-law traditions conceptualize the making and consequences of legal transactions.