2013 California Code
Code of Civil Procedure - CCP
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
17

(a) Words used in this code in the present tense include the future as well as the present; words used in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter; the singular number includes the plural and the plural the singular; the word person includes a corporation as well as a natural person; the word county includes city and county ; writing includes printing and typewriting; oath includes affirmation or declaration; and every mode of oral statement, under oath or affirmation, is embraced by the term testify, and every written one in the term depose ; signature or subscription includes mark, when the person cannot write, his or her name being written near it by a person who writes his or her own name as a witness; provided, that when a signature is by mark it must, in order that the same may be acknowledged or may serve as the signature to any sworn statement, be witnessed by two persons who must subscribe their own names as witness thereto.

(b) The following words have in this code the signification attached to them in this section, unless otherwise apparent from the context:

(1) The word property includes both real and personal property.

(2) The words real property are coextensive with lands, tenements, and hereditaments.

(3) The words personal property include money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt.

(4) The word month means a calendar month, unless otherwise expressed.

(5) The word will includes codicil.

(6) The word writ signifies an order or precept in writing, issued in the name of the people, or of a court or judicial officer, and the word process signifies a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings.

(7) The word state, when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories, and the words United States may include the district and territories.

(8) The word section, whenever hereinafter employed, refers to a section of this code, unless some other code or statute is expressly mentioned.

(9) The word affinity, when applied to the marriage relation, signifies the connection existing in consequence of marriage, between each of the married persons and the blood relatives of the other.

(10) The word sheriff shall include marshal.

(Amended by Stats. 2003, Ch. 62, Sec. 21. Effective January 1, 2004.)