Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning to provoke. Found in historical legal sources as a verb describing the act of provocation, with the related noun form *adayement* denoting the provocation itself.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear only in medieval and early modern legal records composed in Law French — the Anglo-Norman legal dialect used in English courts from roughly the Norman Conquest through the seventeenth century. Researchers encountering *adayer* or *adayement* in plea rolls, Year Books, or early treatises should treat it as a term of art connected to provocation doctrine, which carried significant legal consequences in both criminal and civil contexts. The word is unlikely to appear in post-seventeenth-century sources except as a historical gloss. Researchers working on the history of provocation as a legal defense — particularly its roots in homicide doctrine — may find this term a useful entry point into the earlier stratum of that doctrine, though the doctrinal lineage between *adayement* in Law French sources and later common law provocation doctrine requires careful sourcing and should not be assumed without evidence.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole identified shelf source for this term. Burrill attributes both the verb *adayer* and the noun *adayement* to Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language* (1779), which remains the standard reference for Law French legal vocabulary. The entry is minimal — little more than a gloss — and Burrill offers no doctrinal context or case illustration. This is characteristic of Law French terms that passed out of active legal use before systematic common law reporting matured. Researchers should not expect substantive doctrinal treatment in any of the standard historical dictionaries; the term's significance lies in its linguistic role as a marker for provocation in primary sources, not in any elaborated legal definition.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs to the English common law tradition and its Anglo-Norman linguistic layer. It has no recognized counterpart in Scots, civil law, or American legal terminology.