Medium Deferens Law and Legal Definition
Medium deferens means the medium or means of descending. It is the intervening ancestor through whom property descends to the heir from a more remote ancestor. For instance, where a grandson inherits from his grandfather, the grandson's father being dead, the dead father is the medium deferens of the descent or consanguinity. By the common law, the descent from brother to brother was immediate, and not through the father, as a medium deferens. [Levy v. M'Cartee, 8 L. Ed. 334, 339 (U.S. 1832)].
