Definition
In French marine law, *agreer* (also rendered *agréer*) means to rig or equip a vessel — that is, to furnish a ship with its necessary tackle, rigging, and gear in preparation for use at sea. The term appears in the French Ordonnance de la Marine (Ord. Mar. liv. 1, tit. 2, art. 1), the foundational French maritime code issued under Louis XIV in 1681, which governed much of continental maritime practice for over a century.
The term is French in origin and appears in Anglo-American legal dictionaries primarily as a borrowed term of art from French admiralty law, not as a term of English or American domestic law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who agrees.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who agrees.
The gap here is complete. In ordinary English, *agreer* is simply the agent noun of the verb "to agree" — a person who assents to something. In French maritime law, the term has no connection to agreement or assent whatsoever; it describes the act of outfitting a vessel for sea. A researcher encountering *agreer* in a legal source must identify the context immediately: admiralty and maritime materials carry the French technical meaning; any other legal context likely uses the common English sense, if the word appears at all.
Common Confusion
Do not confuse *agreer* (to rig a vessel) with *affréter* or *fréter* (to charter or freight a vessel) in French maritime law. These are distinct acts: *agreer* concerns physical outfitting; chartering concerns the contractual engagement of a vessel for cargo or passage. Historical dictionaries sometimes cluster French maritime terms without clearly distinguishing their practical functions.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a fossil in the Anglo-American legal dictionary tradition. It survives in Black's and Burrill's because those dictionaries drew heavily on civilian and French maritime sources, particularly the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681 — a statute that shaped admiralty law across Europe and influenced prize court proceedings well into the nineteenth century.
Researchers are most likely to encounter *agreer* in one of two situations: (1) when working with primary French maritime sources or translations thereof, especially materials predating the French Commercial Code of 1807 (Code de Commerce), which reorganized and partly superseded the 1681 Ordonnance; or (2) when tracing a citation chain in Anglo-American admiralty treatises that quotes the Ordonnance directly.
The practical significance of the act itself — rigging and equipping a vessel — was legally consequential in maritime law. Whether a vessel was properly equipped bore on questions of seaworthiness, liability for cargo loss, and the duties owed by shipowners and masters. The term *agreer* would appear in French sources addressing those questions.
Note that this term does not appear to have been naturalized into English admiralty practice as a technical term. English and American courts addressing vessel outfitting used English-language terminology (seaworthiness, tackle, equipment). *Agreer* remains a French term glossed for reference, not a working term of common law admiralty.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary give substantially identical definitions, all tracing to the same source: Ordonnance de la Marine, liv. 1, tit. 2, art. 1. The uniformity signals that all three entries derive from the same original rather than from independent verification. No English-language case law or treatise is cited in any entry to support the definition.
Burrill's is characteristically precise in retaining the full citation form. Black's 2nd edition abbreviates slightly but preserves the substance. None of the three entries provides context about the broader Ordonnance or the significance of the act of equipping within French maritime law — a gap that limits their utility to researchers unfamiliar with French admiralty history.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Maritime Law; French Ordonnance de la Marine (1681); Seaworthiness.