ARR

5 definitions found across Law Mind sources

ARRAuthored
The Law Mind • 801 words
Definition
ARR is a legal abbreviation with two distinct historical uses in common law records and legal literature: 1. ARR (for Arraignment / Ad Rationem Ponere): An abbreviation for the Latin phrase ad rationem ponere, meaning "to put to the bar to answer." In practice, the abbreviation marked the formal stage of criminal proceedings in which an accused was brought before the court, the indictment was read to them, and they were required to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. This is the primary legal sense found in historical English law records and treatises. 2. ARR (for Arpennis/Arpent): An abbreviation appearing in older land measure contexts for the arpent, a unit of area historically equivalent to about one hundred square perches of eighteen feet each, approximating one acre, though the exact quantity varied by province.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Abbreviation of arrival; abbreviation of arrangement. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; arr. appears as a standard abbreviation in general use. Editorial note: Neither of the common meanings — arrival or arrangement — has any connection to the legal uses of this abbreviation. A researcher encountering ARR in historical legal documents should resist importing the ordinary abbreviation's meaning. Context (criminal pleading records versus land surveys) will determine which legal sense applies.
Common Confusion
The two legal senses are easily conflated without context. ARR in a criminal pleading record signals arraignment procedure. ARR in a conveyance, deed, or survey context signals a unit of land measure. Confusing them produces significant misreadings: an arpent is a measure of land, not a stage of criminal process, and vice versa. Additionally, modern readers may misread ARR as "arrival" or "arrangement" based on ordinary abbreviation habits, neither of which appears in the legal record.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers in the Law Mind corpus will encounter ARR most frequently in one of three contexts: (1) marginal notations and headings in English criminal pleading records and form books, where it abbreviates the arraignment stage; (2) older conveyancing documents, particularly those originating in French-influenced jurisdictions such as Louisiana or colonial Canada, where arpent measurements persist well into the nineteenth century; (3) treatise footnotes and commentary citing the Latin ad rationem ponere as the formal basis for arraignment procedure. The arpent sense is a trap for researchers unfamiliar with French land measurement systems. Documents surveyed under French or Spanish colonial rule, later absorbed into U.S. territory, routinely use arpent measurements. Misreading or overlooking ARR as a land measure can distort property boundary analysis in historical title chains. The arraignment sense carries its own historical complexity: the procedural significance of ad rationem ponere evolved over time as English criminal procedure formalized. Early common law sources treat it as a substantive legal act with distinct consequences; later sources treat arraignment more as a formality. Researchers tracing the development of criminal procedure doctrine should note that Burrill records Lord Coke's account of the term alongside later commentators such as Brande and Stephen, whose descriptions of the procedure differ in emphasis.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides both senses of ARR. On the arpent measurement, Burrill cites Spelman and notes Cowell's commentary, acknowledging that the quantity of land varied across provinces — an important qualifier for any researcher using this measure to reconstruct historical acreage. On the arraignment sense, Burrill quotes 4 Stephen's Commentaries and Brande, and notes Lord Coke's account from Co. Litt. 263a, where arraignment is framed through the Latin formula ad rationem ponere. The entry captures the procedural substance: the bringing of the accused to the bar, the reading of the indictment, the demand for a plea, and the recording of that plea. Historical dictionaries agree on the core meaning of both senses. Where they diverge is in completeness: Burrill's entry is rich on the arraignment definition but treats the arpent measure relatively briefly, noting provincial variation without exhaustive detail. Researchers needing full arpent conversion tables or provincial variation records will need to supplement Burrill with survey treatises and colonial land law sources not fully represented in the historical dictionary shelf.
Jurisdictional Note
The arpent as a unit of measure carries particular legal significance in Louisiana, where French land grants used arpent measurements, and courts have been called upon to interpret historical deeds using that unit. Researchers working in Louisiana property law or any jurisdiction with French or Spanish colonial land grant history should treat the arpent sense of ARR as a live research issue, not merely a historical curiosity.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Arraignment; Land Measurement and Survey (Historical)
Related Terms
Arraignment — Ad rationem ponere — Arpent — Indictment — Plea — Criminal Pleading — Land Measure — Perch (unit) — Acre — Colonial Land Grants
ARRmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
(127) one hundred square perches, of eighteen ment, &c. Co. Litt. 263 a. See Arraigner, feet each, or about an acre. Spelman, voc. Ad rationem ponere. Arpennis. But the quantity varied in different provinces. Id. (128) Cowell supposes the indictment to him, and demanding of him his plea, (guilty or not guilty,) and entering it accordingly. 4 Steph. Com. 392. Brande. According to Lord Coke, this was otherwise called astitution, (q. v.) Co. Litt. 262 b. cordingly been adopted. arraign to be formed from the Fr. arranger, to set or put a thing in order, or in its place, answering somewhat to the modern word arrange. The same derivation is adopted by the author of the Termes de la Ley. Lord Coke says it is from the Fr. arraigner, to order, or set in the right place. See supra. And see Astitution. Spelman, who is very copious in his illustration of the subject, is confident of the derivation of arraign from the old Latin word arramare, corrupted into arraniare (the usual Latin form,) by the very slight and easy change of m into ni. This opinion is remarkably confirmed by the authority of Bracton, who uses arramare frequently and without variation, applying it to assises and other judicial proceedings, but in no instance to persons. Si-arramaverit super eum assisam. Bract. fol. 18. Ad assisam quam A. arramavit versus B. Id. fol. 110 b. See more under Arramare. There seems to be no doubt that this was the original form of the word, as applied to proceedings, at least as used in English law, although in the Register it is invariably written arrainare. In assisa quam arrainavit versus N. Reg. Orig. 198. See more under Arrainare. The French arrainer, or arrayner, occurs in Britton with the same application to assises. Si le fitz doit arrainer cest assise vers ascun. Britt. c. 70. Si ambideux eyent arrainy assise. Id. ibid. See Arrainer. In one passage the same author uses arener, in its modern sense, as applied to persons. La soient arenes par le visconte; they shall be arraigned there (in court) by the sheriff. Id. c. 4. But the word seems not to have been generally used in this sense until a later period. For further illustration of the original meaning of arraign, see Arramare. ᎪᎡᎡ ( 129 ) a criminal originally was arraigned, (to use the modern word,) he was allowed to choose in what way he would be tried, and when he had made his choice, and openly proclaimed it at the bar, in answer to the question, "How wilt thou be tried?" he was said arramare, and to be thereupon arramatus, (afterwards arrainatus, or arraigned.) This opinion has much to sustain it in the ancient practice of the courts as illustrated by Spelman, but is not easily reconcilable with the fact that the term arraign, in its application to criminal proceedings, has always been exclusively used to denote the act of the court, and not that of the party. As to the meaning of the expression assisam arramare, so frequent in Bracton, there is less room for doubt, as that author constantly uses the expression, portare assisam, (to bring an assise) to denote the same thing. Bract. fols. 26, 33, 177, 196 b, 197. It occurs in the same sense in the Year Books. See M. 3 Edw. II. 58, 59. Arramare probably had a technical sense, expressive of some peculiarity of proceeding, which was figuratively used to denote prosecution generally, just as the modern expression, "to file a bill," is daily used to denote the commencement of a suit in equity. ( 130 ) Si aliquis arrectatus fuerit de morte alicujus; if one be charged with the death of any person. Offic. Coronatoris, cited in Spelman, voc. Arrectatus. See record in Hale's Hist. Com. Law, 43. To reckon, esteem or judge. Skene writes it erectare, and cites Quon. Attach. c. de brevibus, 31. rest. (131)
arrnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Abbreviation of arrival. | Abbreviation of arrangement.
arrverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
To say “arr” like a pirate.
arrnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Abbreviation of arrondissement.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In