Quod vide, almost always abbreviated q.v., is a Latin phrase meaning “which see.” In legal and scholarly writing it appears in parentheses after a word or phrase to tell the reader that the term is defined or explained somewhere else in the same document, and that they should go find that entry before moving on.1The Bluebook. 3.5 Internal Cross-References
“Quod” means “which.” “Vide” means “see.” Put together, the phrase is a direct instruction rather than a passive note. When a drafter writes “force majeure (q.v.),” they are literally telling you to go look up the entry for force majeure elsewhere in the work.
How It Appears on the Page
The abbreviation follows the referenced word or phrase immediately, almost always inside parentheses. A contract clause might read: “The Licensee shall comply with all Restricted Activities (q.v.) during the term of this Agreement.” The parentheses keep the cross-reference visually separate from the sentence, so the main point still reads cleanly.
Some older reference works and legal encyclopedias drop the parentheses and italicize the abbreviation instead. Both formats do the same job. Parentheses are the modern convention in legal drafting because they make the cross-reference impossible to miss during document review.
The function is protective. In a contract, defined terms often carry meanings that differ from everyday usage. The q.v. notation warns the reader that the word they just encountered is a term of art with a controlled meaning assigned elsewhere in the document, and that applying its ordinary English sense could lead them astray.
The Plural Form
When a writer needs to point the reader to several defined terms at once, the grammatically correct Latin plural is quae vide, abbreviated qq.v. You’ll see this mostly in reference works or legal digests where a single passage touches on multiple defined concepts and the author wants to flag all of them together rather than attaching a separate (q.v.) to each one.
How Q.V. Differs from Supra and Infra
Legal writing uses several Latin cross-reference terms, and they do different jobs. Mixing them up is a common mistake.
- Supra means “above” and points the reader back to material that already appeared earlier in the text. “See discussion supra” means look back.
- Infra means “below” and points forward. “See Part III, infra” means the relevant discussion is still to come.
- Q.v. is direction-neutral. It doesn’t tell you whether the referenced material is above or below your current position. It only says the term is explained somewhere in the work, and leaves you to find it.
The Bluebook, the dominant citation manual in American legal writing, addresses supra and infra formally in Rule 3.5 as tools for internal cross-references. It does not include q.v. among its prescribed citation forms.1The Bluebook. 3.5 Internal Cross-References
Why Modern Drafters Avoid It
The legal profession has been moving away from Latin abbreviations for decades, and q.v. is one of the casualties. The plain-English movement in legal writing encourages drafters to replace Latin phrasing with English equivalents wherever possible. Instead of “(q.v.),” a modern drafter is more likely to write “(see Section 2.4)” or “(as defined in Article I).”
The English alternatives solve a real problem with q.v.: the abbreviation tells you to go look something up but doesn’t tell you where. A specific reference like “see the definition on page 12” is immediately useful in a way that a bare “(q.v.)” is not. Writing guides now broadly advise against the abbreviation on that ground alone, with the added concern that non-lawyers reviewing a contract may not know what q.v. means.
Electronic filing has pushed the shift further. Federal courts allow and encourage attorneys to embed hyperlinks in briefs and other filings, providing direct clickable access to cited cases, statutes, and internal sections.2United States Courts. Attorney Guide to Hyperlinking in the Federal Courts A hyperlink does everything q.v. does and removes the ambiguity about location.
No court has banned Latin cross-references, and q.v. remains perfectly correct where you find it. But when you encounter it today, it usually signals an older drafting tradition or a form template that hasn’t been updated. If you’re drafting your own document, a specific section reference or a hyperlink will serve your reader better.