Definition
An archaic Law French adverbial term meaning "first," "at first," "for the first time," or "in the first place." Used in early English legal proceedings, particularly in pleading contexts, to indicate priority of sequence — that one act or step was to be performed before another could follow. The term functions as a procedural directive, signaling the required order of actions in a legal proceeding.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering ADEPRIMES will find it almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal records, Year Books, and treatises drawing on Law French pleading practice. Its appearance in a source is a reliable indicator that the surrounding text concerns procedural sequencing in pleading — specifically, the rule that a party must first do one thing before being permitted to proceed to the next. The term is essentially extinct in modern legal writing and practice. Because it belongs to the Law French stratum of English legal vocabulary, researchers working in pre-nineteenth century common law sources should treat it as part of a broader lexicon of procedural instruction words that operated as terms of art in oral and written pleading. Confusion may arise because the word superficially resembles Latin constructions; it is properly Law French. When tracing early pleading rules in the Law Mind corpus, ADEPRIMES may appear in close proximity to terms governing the order of pleas, suggesting a formal requirement that certain preliminary pleas or defenses be raised before others could be entertained by the court.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the only shelf source to capture this term, and its entry is brief. Burrill renders the definition as "first; at first; for the first time; in the first place," citing Kelham's glossary and the treatise Fet Assaver (a medieval English procedural text), as well as a Year Book reference from the reign of Edward III. The illustrative phrase Burrill preserves — "Pledes adeprimes v're plea, et puis desputes" — translates roughly as "plead first your plea, and then dispute," a concise articulation of the procedural priority the term encodes. No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus appear to carry an entry for this term, which itself reflects how narrow and archaic its usage was even by the time legal lexicographers were compiling comprehensive glossaries. Researchers should treat the Year Book and Fet Assaver references in Burrill as the most direct primary-source trail available for this term.