philgoddard Sep 9, 2012:

I don't remember seeing this in Spanish before, but in other European languages it means "with reference to" or just "re". You could help to confirm whether this is the case by telling us (a) what the sentence says and (b) what article 23 says.

Charles Davis Sep 9, 2012:

I agree with you about "appendix": 23 appendices seems very unlikely. Ley Nº 17.418 de Seguros, the main Argentine insurance law, doesn't seem to have any additional articles, let alone 23. I really don't think it can mean "cf." or "re."; I've never seen "ad." used to mean that and haven't found any evidence that it's ever used in that sense, either in Argentina or elsewhere. Besides, if it meant "cf. 23" it would almost certainly say "ad. art. 23", not just "ad. 23".

My best guess is that "ad." is actually just a typo (probably OCR-related) for "art.". I found other cases of this while looking for evidence relevant to this question.

Germaine A Hoston (asker) Sep 9, 2012:

Context There is simply a provision in special clauses, and it does indicate before these clauses are listed that there will be references to articles in the Argentine Insurance Law and in the main contract. So the only context is really that here is how the term appears "(ad. 23)" at the end of the clause. In every other clause the references are (art. 24) or (arts. 15 y 16), but in this one it is (ad. 23). I don't see how it could be an appendix, because I don't see the possibility of 23 appendices to either the law or the contract. So I am wondering if it my be an equivalent of "cf." or "re" in English.

Charles Davis Sep 9, 2012:

@ Germaine The obvious question. You say it is at the end of a sentence. What does the sentence say?

I don't think it can mean "cf.". It might be "adicional", possibly meaning"cláusula adicional". Does the contract contain "cláusulas adicionales"?