Definition
A written discharge releasing a party from an obligation to pay money or perform a duty. An acquittance serves as evidence that a debt has been satisfied or an obligation fulfilled, and bars any further demand on the same account. A receipt in full is a common form of acquittance; so is a formal written discharge. The term is broad enough to encompass both, and the two are not strictly synonymous — a receipt is one species of acquittance, not its equivalent.
The essential features: the discharge must be in writing, and it need not be under seal. This last point distinguishes an acquittance from a release, which traditionally required a seal to be operative.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A writing that evidences discharge of a debt; a receipt in full barring further demand; also used loosely for payment of a debt, release from obligation, or even acquittal of a legal charge.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The clearing off of debt or obligation; a release or discharge from debt or other liability. A writing which is evidence of a discharge; a receipt in full, which bars a further demand."
The common and legal meanings are largely consistent here, but the Wiktionary entry introduces a usage — "the dismissal of a legal charge; acquittal" — that the legal term does not support. In law, acquittance is strictly a contracts and obligations concept, not a criminal procedure one. Researchers encountering the word in older non-legal texts should not assume it carries criminal law significance.
Common Confusion
Acquittance is frequently confused with three related terms:
ACQUITTAL refers to a verdict or judgment in a criminal proceeding that a defendant is not guilty. The words share a Latin root but have been legally distinct for centuries. Acquittance has no criminal law application.
RELEASE is a formal legal instrument that also discharges an obligation but traditionally required execution under seal to be effective. An acquittance requires no seal. In practice, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in older sources, but their technical requirements differ.
RECEIPT is a narrower instrument — a written acknowledgment of payment received. An acquittance encompasses receipts but also covers discharges of non-monetary duties and obligations. Every receipt in full is an acquittance, but not every acquittance is a receipt.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century contracts materials will encounter acquittance with some frequency, particularly in treatises on obligations and in commercial disputes. Its use has declined sharply in modern legal drafting, where "release," "discharge," or "receipt in full" now do the work.
Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, older sources — particularly those following the civil law tradition — sometimes use acquittance interchangeably with release without noting the seal distinction. Bouvier explicitly distinguishes the two on the seal requirement; not all sources do. When a historical source uses acquittance in a context where enforceability is at issue, verify whether the drafting court required a seal for the instrument to operate.
Second, Wiktionary and some general dictionaries list "acquittal of a legal charge" as a meaning of acquittance. This conflation does not appear in the legal dictionary tradition. If you encounter the word in a criminal law context in older sources, it almost certainly means something other than a formal acquittance in the contracts sense — likely a loose usage or a translation artifact from Latin or French.
Third, Burrill traces the term to the Latin acquietancia, and researchers may encounter that spelling or its variants (acquietance, acquitance) in medieval and early modern sources. These are the same instrument.
Fourth, Anderson's note that "a receipt for damages may operate as an acquittance, when not a release" signals that courts historically scrutinized the specific instrument to determine its legal effect. The label attached by the parties was not always controlling.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are in substantial agreement on the core definition. All five treat acquittance as a written discharge, applicable to money debts or other obligations, not requiring a seal. The points of divergence are minor but worth noting.
Bouvier is the most precise on the seal distinction, citing Pothier directly and referencing Co. Litt. and Salkeld for authority. He frames acquittance as evidence of payment rather than a conveyance of rights, which is the appropriate characterization.
Burrill takes the broadest view of the term's scope, extending it to "duty agreed to be performed, or any other obligation," not merely payment of money. This is consistent with Anderson's formulation, which includes "discharge from the performance of a duty."
Black's (both editions) defines the term concisely and confirms that while receipt and acquittance are not strictly synonymous, the latter includes the former. The second edition's phrasing — "a receipt in full is an acquittance, and a receipt for a part of a demand... is not" — is the most practically useful formulation for understanding the discharge function.
What the historical sources collectively underemphasize is the evidentiary dimension: an acquittance does not merely record payment but operates as a bar to further demand. This is implied in the definitions but rarely stated as a distinct legal consequence.
Jurisdictional Note
The distinction between acquittance and release — specifically the seal requirement for a release — varied by jurisdiction in American legal history as courts in different states abolished or modified the seal requirement at different times. In jurisdictions that early on treated private seals as ineffective, the practical distinction between acquittance and release largely collapsed. Researchers analyzing historical documents should check the seal rules applicable in the relevant jurisdiction and period before assuming the distinction was operative.