Definition
In legal usage, amour is a Law French term meaning grace or favor, used historically in English common law procedure. It appears most distinctly in the compound phrase jour d'amour — a day of grace — referring to a day appointed by a court allowing parties an opportunity to settle a dispute or comply with an obligation before judgment was entered against them. The term carried no romantic connotation in its legal context; it denoted judicial indulgence or procedural clemency.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A love affair; courtship or flirtation; a lover; love or affection.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Love or affection (noted as obsolete in that sense); more commonly, a love affair, typically an unlawful or illicit connection; a love intrigue.
The gap here is complete. In ordinary English, amour has always signified romantic or erotic attachment, often with connotations of secrecy or impropriety. In Law French usage, the word carried none of this meaning. The legal term derives from a distinct semantic register in which amour meant grace, favor, or indulgence — a meaning rooted in Old French legal and courtly administrative language rather than in the language of romance. A researcher encountering amour in a legal source should not import any romantic meaning into the text.
Common Confusion
Amour is occasionally misread in historical legal sources by researchers unfamiliar with Law French, who import the modern English or common French romantic meaning. The confusion is understandable — the word is identical in form to the ordinary French and English term for a love affair — but contextually inappropriate. In legal records, amour signals a procedural or equitable concept of favor and grace, not any matter relating to romantic conduct, adultery, or seduction. See also DIES AMORIS, which is the Latin equivalent phrase and the more common form encountered in formal legal records.
Why It Matters in Research
Amour surfaces almost exclusively in historical English legal sources as part of the phrase jour d'amour. Researchers working in medieval or early modern English court records, plea rolls, or procedural treatises may encounter it in passing references to days of grace granted by courts — a practice connected to equitable and procedural flexibility before the hardening of common law forms. The term is largely obsolete in any modern legal context and will not appear in post-eighteenth-century sources except as an antiquarian reference.
The primary research trap is misidentification. Because amour appears in Law French sources written in a mixture of Latin, French, and English, and because modern readers are far more familiar with its romantic meaning, the legal sense is easily overlooked or misread. Burrill flags the definition briefly and points researchers to Dies Amoris for the more developed treatment — researchers should follow that cross-reference, as jour d'amour and dies amoris refer to the same concept and the Latin form is far better documented in historical dictionaries and legal records.
Researchers interested in the broader practice of days of grace in English procedure will find more useful material under dies amoris, continuances, and essoins than under amour itself, which functions here primarily as a vocabulary marker rather than a substantive legal doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only historical legal dictionary entry in the Law Mind corpus for this term. The entry is brief: Burrill defines amour as "grace or favor" in Law French, illustrates it through jour d'amour (a day of grace), and cites Kelham's Law French dictionary while directing readers to Dies Amoris. No extended doctrinal treatment is offered, and none is expected — the term is a vocabulary item, not a term of art with independent legal weight.
The entry reflects the standard approach of nineteenth-century legal lexicographers to Law French survivals: record the definition, provide a representative compound phrase, and cross-reference the more fully developed Latin equivalent. Researchers should not expect to find amour as a standalone doctrinal entry in other historical dictionaries; its appearance in Burrill is likely representative of its marginal presence across the broader lexicographic tradition.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: Dies Amoris