Definition
ACQ is an abbreviation appearing in historical legal manuscripts and printed texts, primarily associated with the Latin and Law French traditions. It functions as a contracted form rather than a standalone term, typically standing for words beginning with those letters — most commonly "acquittance," "acquisition," or related forms depending on context. Because it is an abbreviation rather than a term of art, its meaning must be inferred from the surrounding text and the legal tradition in which the source was produced.
As shorthand for acquittance: a written discharge or release acknowledging that a debt or obligation has been satisfied. The document itself served as evidence that a party was freed from a claim.
As shorthand for acquisition: the act of obtaining property or rights, particularly in the context of land title and conveyancing. In medieval and early modern legal records, "acquisition" referred to property obtained by purchase or grant rather than by inheritance.
---
Common Confusion
ACQ should not be confused with ACQU. or ACQUIT., which are distinct abbreviations used in some legal manuscripts and court records to indicate acquittal in criminal proceedings. The visual similarity can cause misreading, particularly in handwritten records where terminal letters are ambiguous. Similarly, ACQ appearing in conveyancing abstracts is more likely to expand to "acquisition" or "acquired," while ACQ in financial or commercial records is more likely to expand to "acquittance."
---
Why It Matters in Research
The primary challenge ACQ presents to researchers is that it is an abbreviation in historical sources, not a defined term. Its expansion is context-dependent, and misreading it can introduce substantive errors into legal history research. A researcher working with medieval plea rolls, conveyancing records, or early printed law dictionaries must examine surrounding text carefully before assuming which underlying word ACQ represents.
Burrill's Law Dictionary, the principal source on this entry, is itself a mid-nineteenth-century work that draws heavily on earlier English and Latin legal authorities, including Coke, Cowell, Kelham, and Bracton. Abbreviations in that tradition were not standardized in the way modern citation manuals are, and the same contraction could serve different words across different scribal hands or printed editions.
Researchers should also be alert to the difference between ACQ as a manuscript abbreviation and its appearance in printed legal dictionaries and abridgments, where editors sometimes standardized or silently expanded contractions. Cross-referencing Kelham's Norman-French dictionary and Cowell's Interpreter — both of which Burrill cites frequently — can help resolve ambiguous expansions.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary treats ACQ in the context of a larger discussion that includes adjacent terms such as ACHESON (Law French: son, occasion, cause, hurt — per Kelham) and references to Cowell for historical measures and usage. This placement suggests the entry appeared in Burrill as part of a compact alphabetical sequence covering abbreviated and archaic terms, rather than as a fully developed definition of an independent legal concept.
The surrounding material in Burrill references Cowell's Interpreter, a foundational glossary of legal and antiquarian terms published in 1607, and Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language (1779). Both works are essential companions when working with Burrill on terms of this character. Where Burrill is thin, Cowell and Kelham often provide fuller context for the underlying word form.
No other historical dictionaries in the current source set include a standalone ACQ entry, which is consistent with its nature as an abbreviation rather than a discrete term.
---