Definition
In old Law French, *achever* means to attorn — that is, to acknowledge and accept a new lord or transferee of property, typically in the feudal context of land tenure. The act of achever was the tenant's formal recognition of a new landlord's authority following the transfer of the freehold. It is the Law French equivalent of the Latin *attornare* and the anglicized legal term "to attorn."
The term appears in Burrill citing Kelham's *Glossary of Norman and Old French Law Terms*, which catalogued Law French vocabulary drawn from medieval English legal records. Achever in this sense is a technical term of feudal land law, not general French usage.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In modern French, *achever* means to finish, complete, or accomplish something — to bring a task to its end.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not list *achever* as an English entry; it is a French verb not naturalized into English common usage.
Editorial note: The gap here is direct and important. A researcher encountering *achever* in a modern French context would read it as "to complete" or "to finish." In old English legal records, the word carries an entirely different technical meaning — to attorn, to transfer loyalty and acknowledgment to a new feudal lord. These meanings share no practical overlap. A researcher who reads *achever* in a medieval English land record through the lens of modern French will badly misread the document.
Common Confusion
ACHEVER and ATTORN/ATTORNMENT: These terms describe the same legal act from different linguistic traditions. *Achever* is the Law French form; *attornare* is the Latin form; *attorn* is the anglicized common law form; and *attornment* is the noun derived from the anglicized verb. Burrill cross-references Kelham precisely because Law French glossaries were the principal bridge between medieval record language and English legal practice. Researchers may encounter any of these forms depending on the age and origin of the source.
ACHEVER and ACHEVER (modern French): As noted above, the word's modern French meaning — to finish or complete — is entirely unrelated to its Law French legal meaning. Paleographers and historians working with medieval English records must resist the modern French reading.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is encountered almost exclusively in one context: Law French legal records and the secondary glossaries that interpret them. Primary sources where *achever* appears will typically be medieval English court records, conveyances, or tenure documents predating the gradual displacement of Law French from English legal proceedings (substantially complete by the mid-seventeenth century, though Law French survivals persist in formulaic pleading language longer).
Researchers should note that Burrill's entry is a thin one — a single-line cross-reference to Kelham with no independent elaboration. This means Burrill is useful here only as a pointer, not as a substantive source. To research *achever* properly, a researcher must consult Kelham's *Glossary* directly, and should also cross-reference Rastell's *Termes de la Ley* and Tomlin's *Law Dictionary* for any additional Law French vocabulary context.
The practical trap in corpus research is encountering *achever* in a document and either (1) misreading it through modern French, or (2) overlooking it because it does not appear under standard English-language index terms. Law Mind corpus researchers should search under both ATTORN and ATTORNMENT when attempting to locate the substantive doctrine, treating *achever* as the Law French surface form of those concepts.
There is also a risk of conflation with adjacent entries. In Burrill, *achever* immediately precedes *ACIA/Acya* (malice or hatred, from Fleta). These are entirely unrelated concepts sharing proximity only in alphabetical arrangement. A researcher scanning a dense Law French document should not assume semantic relationship between proximate unfamiliar terms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's treatment of *achever* is minimal — a two-word definition ("to attorn") with a single citation to Kelham. This brevity is itself informative: by Burrill's time (mid-nineteenth century), *achever* as a working legal term had long since dropped out of active English legal practice, surviving only as a historical curiosity in Law French glossaries. Burrill preserves it for completeness, not because practitioners needed it.
Kelham's *Glossary of Norman and Old French Law Terms* (1779) is the foundational source Burrill defers to. Kelham compiled his glossary specifically to assist lawyers and historians reading old English records written in Law French, and his entry for *achever* links the term to the developed English doctrine of attornment. No meaningful divergence exists between Burrill and Kelham on this term — Burrill simply transmits Kelham's authority.
Historical dictionaries that postdate Burrill, including Black's Law Dictionary in its early editions, do not carry a separate entry for *achever*, having absorbed the doctrine fully under ATTORN and ATTORNMENT. This is the typical fate of Law French terms in English legal lexicography: the foreign-language form disappears and the anglicized form inherits all substantive treatment.
Jurisdictional Note
*Achever* as a live legal term is of historical significance only and is not operative in any modern jurisdiction. Its doctrinal content — attornment — survives in modern real property law, particularly in landlord-tenant contexts, but under anglicized terminology. Researchers working with Quebec legal materials should note that Quebec's civil law tradition draws on French legal vocabulary independently and that *achever* in Quebec sources would carry its ordinary French meaning, not its Law French English-law meaning.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: ATTORNMENT; FEUDAL TENURE; LAW FRENCH