Definition
A large is a Law French phrase meaning "at large." In legal usage, it carries two related but distinct senses:
1. Freedom from confinement or restraint — a person or animal said to be "at large" is unconfined, unimprisoned, or not in custody.
2. In a general or unqualified sense — a power, authority, or right exercised without specific limitation or restriction, as distinguished from one confined to particular circumstances or objects.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "At large" in contemporary English means free, uncaptured, or not confined — as in "the suspect is still at large." It also carries the sense of representing a whole constituency rather than a specific district, as in "congressman at large."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "At large" — at liberty; without restraint; also, at length; in full; as, to discourse at large on a subject.
The legal phrase *a large* is simply the Law French form of the same expression. The gap is not one of meaning but of form: a researcher encountering *a large* in a historical text may not immediately recognize it as the familiar "at large," particularly in records or reports rendered partly in Law French. The confusion is orthographic and linguistic, not conceptual.
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Common Confusion
A large should not be confused with "at large" in its modern electoral sense (a representative elected by an entire jurisdiction rather than a subdivision), which is a developed usage that postdates the Law French period. Historical legal sources using *a large* are almost always invoking the liberty-from-restraint sense, not the electoral one.
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Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap here is recognition. Burrill cites *a large* as a Law French form and points researchers to Dyer's reports (an important collection of sixteenth-century English case reports, rendered substantially in Law French) and to section references that place the term in procedural and custodial contexts. A researcher working with early English reports — Year Books, Dyer, Plowden, and similar sources — will encounter Law French vocabulary throughout, and *a large* is among the simpler forms. Failure to recognize it as "at large" can interrupt reading of passages concerning bail, escape, the custody of persons, or the scope of writs and commissions.
The phrase also appears in contexts describing powers or commissions granted broadly rather than specifically — a commission granted *a large* means one not confined to a narrow subject. This usage is relevant when researching the scope of authority exercised by early English courts, commissioners, or officers of the crown.
Because Law French was substantially displaced from English legal practice by the eighteenth century, *a large* will appear almost exclusively in sources predating that shift. Researchers using modern editions or translations of early reports should check whether *a large* has been silently rendered as "at large" or translated without annotation.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief but precise: it identifies *a large* as Law French for "at large" and supplies two references — a section reference (likely to a treatise or abridgment) and a citation to Dyer's reports in the French edition (Dyer, 41, Fr. ed.). Burrill does not elaborate on the substantive legal meaning, treating the phrase as essentially a translation note rather than a term requiring independent doctrinal explanation. This is appropriate: the legal work is done by "at large" itself, and *a large* is simply its Law French dress.
Historical dictionaries generally handle Law French terms tersely, and this entry is consistent with that pattern. What the historical sources do not provide is any guidance on the electoral or representative sense of "at large," because that usage had not yet developed when *a large* was in active service.
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