Oral or written evidence outside of a contract that parties try to use to contradict, modify, or add to the terms of a written agreement. The parol evidence rule generally excludes such evidence to protect the integrity of written contracts.
From Old French 'parole' meaning 'word' or 'speech,' derived from Latin 'parabola' (speech, parable). The term originally referred to any oral communication, later specializing in law to mean evidence outside the written contract.
Parol evidence is like trying to change a recipe after the cake is baked—the law says once you've written down your complete agreement, you can't use outside conversations to alter what you actually agreed to, protecting the 'four corners' of the document!
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