Question:medium

Choose the correct meaning of the foreign language phrase "inter vivos".

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When dealing with Latin legal terms, break the phrase into its root meanings to understand the context—\emph{inter} means "between" and \emph{vivos} means "living".
Updated On: Jul 15, 2026
  • a transaction made for obtaining a legacy
  • an agreement to promote the welfare of one’s country
  • a transaction made between living people
  • an agreement between warring nations
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The Correct Option is C

Approach Solution - 1

In law, transfers of property are classified by when they take effect relative to the transferor's life. 'Inter vivos' transfers happen while the person is alive, as opposed to 'testamentary' or 'mortis causa' transfers, which only take effect after death.

  1. Option A: Obtaining a legacy happens after someone's death, that falls under 'mortis causa,' the direct opposite of 'inter vivos.'
  2. Option B: A national-welfare agreement has nothing to do with the living/dead distinction the phrase describes.
  3. Option C: A transaction between living people is exactly what 'inter vivos' describes, gifts, sales, or transfers completed while both parties are alive.
  4. Option D: An agreement between warring nations is a treaty or truce, unrelated to whether individual parties are living or not.

The correct answer is a transaction made between living people.

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Approach Solution -2

Each wrong option contains one keyword that directly conflicts with what 'inter vivos' actually describes, a transaction between two people who are both alive at the time. Scanning for that conflicting keyword in each option settles the question quickly.

  1. a transaction made for obtaining a legacy: The conflicting keyword is 'legacy', something received specifically because of someone's death, which is the opposite condition to 'the living' that 'inter vivos' requires.
  2. an agreement to promote the welfare of one's country: The conflicting keyword is 'country', shifting the subject from individual people to a nation as a whole, when 'inter vivos' is specifically about persons, not political entities.
  3. a transaction made between living people: No conflicting keyword appears, 'between' and 'living people' align precisely with the literal sense of the phrase, a transaction happening directly between two people who are both alive.
  4. an agreement between warring nations: The conflicting keyword is 'warring nations', again replacing individual living persons with entire nations, and adding a state of conflict that has nothing to do with the living/dead distinction the phrase draws.

Only one option is free of a keyword that clashes with the 'living people' requirement built into the phrase itself.

The correct answer is a transaction made between living people.

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Top Questions on Phrase or Idiom Meaning

Questions Asked in CLAT exam

Read the passage and answer the question.

Passage (extract): The work which Gandhiji had taken up was not only regarding the achievement of political freedom but also the establishment of a new social order based on truth and non-violence, unity and peace, equality and universal brotherhood and maximum freedom for all. A new order cannot be established without radically changing the mind and attitude of men towards property and, at some stage or the other, the 'haves' have to yield place to the 'have-nots'. We have seen, in our time, attempts to achieve a kind of egalitarian society and the picture of it after it was achieved. But this was done, by and large, through the use of physical force. It may even be that, like a gas kept confined within containers under great pressure, or water held back by a big dam, once the barrier breaks, the reaction will one day sweep back with a violence equal in extent and intensity to what was used to establish and maintain the outward egalitarian form. This enforced egalitarianism contains, in its bosom, the seed of its own destruction. If egalitarianism is to endure, it has to be based not on the possession of the maximum material goods by a few or by all but on voluntary, enlightened renunciation of those goods which cannot be shared by others or can be enjoyed only at the expense of others.

According to the passage, egalitarianism will not survive if
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Passage (extract): The work which Gandhiji had taken up was not only regarding the achievement of political freedom but also the establishment of a new social order based on truth and non-violence, unity and peace, equality and universal brotherhood and maximum freedom for all. This unfinished part of his experiment was perhaps even more difficult to achieve than the achievement of political freedom. In the political struggle, the fight was against a foreign power and all one could do was either join it or wish it success and give it his/her moral support. In establishing a social order on this pattern, there was a strong possibility of a conflict arising between diverse groups and classes of our own people.

According to the passage, which was the unfinished part of Gandhi's experiment?
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Passage (extract): In the political struggle, the fight was against a foreign power and all one could do was either join it or wish it success and give it his/her moral support. Experience shows that man values his possessions even more than his life because in the former he sees the means for perpetuation and survival of his descendants even after his body is reduced to ashes. We have seen, in our time, attempts to achieve a kind of egalitarian society and the picture of it after it was achieved. But this was done, by and large, through the use of physical force. This enforced egalitarianism contains, in its bosom, the seed of its own destruction. The root cause of class conflict is possessiveness or the acquisitive instinct.

Which of the following statements is 'not true' in the context of the passage?
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