Agreement not to be performed within one year

What does Agreement not to be performed within one year mean in American Law?

The definition of Agreement not to be performed within one year in the law of the United States, as defined by the lexicographer Arthur Leff in his legal dictionary is:

This is one category of agreement covered by the original and most subsequent versions of the Statute of Frauds. The critical thing to remember is that the provision is supposed (by most interpreters) to apply only to contracts which by their terms cannot be performed within a year, e.g., a contract calling for delivery fourteen months in the future, not to those just very unlikely to be so quickly performed, e.g., a contract to construct a large bridge. But a contract to employ a man “for life” could by the terms of the contract be “performed” within a year if he died that quickly, and thus most courts have not found a for-life contract to be within the statute. (The fact that the fourteen-month employee could also die in eight months has been met with the argument that in that case, though there would be no liability on the decedent’s estate, that contract was not “completed” or “performed” but only “excused” within the year.)

In any event, this misbegotten provision has been variously and massively interpreted by courts for centuries, and almost no generalization about it is safe for any particular jurisdiction.