1. Ready-made or all-purpose language that will fit in a variety of documents. • The term, first recorded in 1893, may have referred to steel plates affixed to boilers. But the modern sense comes from the use of the term to refer to copy set on printing plates (or molds to make the plates) and distributed in that form to newspapers. The copy could not be edited.
2. Fixed or standardized contractual language that the proposing party views as relatively nonnegotiable. [Cases: Contracts
1. C.J.S. Contracts §§ 2–3, 9, 12.] — boilerplate, adj.