Definition
An archaic Law French adverb and preposition used in old English legal texts with two related but distinct senses:
1. Behind; in arrear. Used to indicate that something remains outstanding, unpaid, or undone — that a party stands in deficit of what is owed or required.
2. Back; again. Used to indicate a return to a prior state or a repetition of an action — that something came back, was returned, or was done over.
Both senses derive from the Latin *a retro* (from behind) and appear in medieval English legal records, register entries, and reports. The term is functionally obsolete in modern legal writing.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Listed as an obsolete or archaic form of "arear," meaning in the rear; behind; in arrears.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "See Arear. [Obs.]"
The common and legal meanings are not in conflict here, but the legal usage is narrower and more technical than the ordinary archaic sense suggests. In legal texts, *arere* carried specific operative meaning in pleading and record language — most importantly in the phrase *riens en arrere* (nothing in arrear), a recognized pleading response — rather than functioning as a mere spatial or temporal descriptor.
Common Confusion
ARERE / ARREAR / ARREARS: These three forms shade into one another across centuries of legal writing. *Arere* is the Law French form; *arrear* is its anglicized equivalent; *arrears* is the modern plural noun designating an outstanding debt or unfulfilled obligation. Researchers encountering *arere* in manuscript records or printed Year Books should not assume the term always refers to debt: context is required to distinguish the "in arrear" sense from the "back again / return" sense.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-modern English legal sources — particularly the Year Books, the Register of Original Writs (*Registrum Omnium Brevium*), Dyer's Reports, and the early chancery and common law records — will encounter *arere* in both its senses without explicit signposting. Misreading the directional or iterative sense ("back again") as the arrears sense, or vice versa, can distort the meaning of a pleading or judicial notation.
The phrase *riens en arrere* (nothing in arrear) is a set formula in debt and account proceedings; recognizing *arere* as its root helps researchers identify and correctly classify such entries in older printed sources.
The iterative sense appears in report language — *fuit argue arere*, "it was argued again" — and signals procedural repetition rather than financial default. This sense is easy to overlook because modern legal vocabulary has no direct equivalent; the closest contemporary phrasing would be "re-argued" or "argued on a second occasion."
Because *arere* appears almost exclusively in Law French or Latinate legal contexts, it will not appear in modern statutes, codes, or court opinions. Its practical relevance is confined to historical legal research, translation of early records, and doctrinal history tracing concepts like arrears and account back to their medieval procedural origins.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus, and its entry is compact but adequate. Burrill correctly identifies both the "in arrear" and "back/again" senses, supplies the Latin root (*a retro*), and provides three illustrative citations: the *Registrum Omnium Brevium* for the return-of-beasts example, Dyer for *achate arere* (bought back), and Freeman for the re-argument usage. These are genuine historical sources, and the examples together cover the term's functional range well.
No modern legal dictionary gives *arere* a substantive entry; Black's treats it implicitly through its coverage of ARREARS. The historical dictionaries, including Burrill, are therefore the terminus for definitional authority on this term, and researchers should treat Burrill's entry as essentially complete for practical purposes.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is specific to the old English common law tradition and appears in English legal records and reports. It has no independent life in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions except as a matter of legal history.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: ARREARS