Definition
A Latin verbal form used in old pleading, meaning "to assure" or "to give assurance." The term appears in the formulaic language of early common law pleadings, where Latin phrases carried precise procedural weight. In context, assurare functioned as a pleading verb — a word of action by which a party alleged that a promise, guarantee, or solemn undertaking was made.
Why It Matters in Research
Assurare is a term of limited but specific use: it belongs to the vocabulary of Latin pleading forms that were standard in English common law practice before the shift to English-language pleading accelerated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researchers encountering it will most likely find it embedded in older plea rolls, precedent books, or form collections rather than in substantive legal doctrine.
The principal trap for researchers is treating assurare as a synonym for the broader modern concept of assurance (as in insurance or warranty). In its pleading context, it is a term of form, not a substantive legal category. Its appearance signals the type of action or count being pleaded — likely one sounding in warranty, covenant, or guarantee — but the term itself does not define the rights at issue. The surrounding pleading language must be read to determine the legal claim.
Burrill's citation to Townshend's Pleader (Towns. Pl. 23, 54) places assurare within the technical pleading treatise tradition. Researchers using Townshend or similar pleading form books will find the word used as part of standard verbal formulas, not as a defined legal concept in its own right. Understanding that Latin pleading terms in these sources function grammatically — as verbs of allegation — rather than doctrinally is essential to accurate interpretation.
Assurare also connects to the broader family of assurance-related terms (see RELATED TERMS) that carry substantive legal content. When moving from a pleading formula containing assurare to the doctrine underlying the claim, researchers should pivot to those substantive entries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides a minimal entry: the term is identified as Latin, classified as a term of old pleading, glossed as "to assure," and supported by two page references to Townshend's Pleader. This is characteristic of how pleading-form Latin appears in historical legal dictionaries — acknowledged, briefly glossed, and left to the practitioner's treatises for context.
No substantive divergence appears across sources because assurare does not appear to have been treated as a doctrinal term in its own right by any of the major historical dictionaries. Its presence in Burrill reflects the comprehensive scope Burrill brought to Latin pleading vocabulary, capturing terms that other dictionaries passed over entirely. Researchers should not read the brevity of Burrill's entry as indicating insignificance; rather, it reflects the nature of the term as procedural form language whose meaning was self-evident to trained pleaders of the period.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any sustained analysis of how assurare functioned across different forms of action — whether it appeared with equal frequency in assumpsit, covenant, or warranty counts, and whether its use tracked any particular regional or temporal pleading tradition. That analysis, if needed, would require direct examination of plea roll and precedent book sources rather than dictionary consultation.