In this special edition of The Republic’s Conscience, Nicolin Decker advances The Definitional Drift Application Doctrine (DDAD) by introducing its temporal dimension—demonstrating that definitional drift is governed not only by institutional structure, but also by the rate, spacing, and continuity of application across time.

This episode establishes that definitional drift is not episodic or isolated, but accumulative. Each application of legal language contributes to a larger interpretive inheritance that persists across generations through precedent, administrative practice, legislative continuity, and institutional memory. From this foundation, the doctrine introduces the concept of intergenerational interpretive carryover, explaining how legal actors inherit not only text, but the accumulated context in which that tex ...