Definition
A Law French term with two distinct operational meanings in historical legal usage:
1. To attaint or convict — the act of formally finding a person guilty of a crime, particularly a felony or treason, with the full legal consequences of attainder following.
2. To attain, obtain, or abide by — a procedural sense meaning to reach, meet, or be bound by a judgment or legal outcome.
The term is the Law French root from which the English words "attaint" and "attainder" directly derive. It appears in early English legal records, Year Books, and Norman-influenced pleading as a verb describing the act of conviction and its legal consequences, as well as the state of having been so convicted.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Atteindre" is a standard French verb meaning "to reach," "to attain," or "to achieve."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's does not record "atteindre" as an English entry. The related English form "attain" is defined as "to reach or come to, by motion, growth, or effort."
The gap between the common French meaning and the legal Law French usage is significant. In ordinary French, atteindre is neutral — to reach or arrive at something. In Law French legal usage, the term carried a severe and specific technical force: to convict, to taint with the legal consequences of felony or treason. A researcher encountering atteindre in a legal record is not reading a general statement about reaching or obtaining something; they are most likely reading about conviction and its consequences.
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Common Confusion
ATTEINDRE / ATTAINT / ATTAINDER: These three terms are frequently encountered in proximity and share a common root, but they operate at different levels. Atteindre is the verb (the act). Attaint describes the state of having been convicted or the person so convicted. Attainder is the legal institution — the body of civil and legal consequences (forfeiture of property, corruption of blood, civil death) that followed conviction for treason or felony. Conflating the verb with the institutional consequence is a common error when reading historical sources. Atteindre describes the moment; attainder describes the aftermath.
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Why It Matters in Research
ATTEINDRE is primarily a source-language term — you will encounter it in Law French legal records, Year Books, and early English pleadings rather than in modern legal writing. Its importance to researchers lies in three areas.
First, knowing the dual meaning matters for accurate reading. The same term appears in procedural contexts meaning "to abide by" or "to be bound by" a judgment, and in criminal/political contexts meaning "to convict" with full attainder consequences. Context distinguishes which sense is operative, but careless reading can produce significant misinterpretation.
Second, the term serves as an etymological marker. When tracing the development of attainder doctrine — including its eventual constitutional prohibition in the United States and the United Kingdom — atteindre in Year Books and early records marks the beginning of that lineage. Researchers working backward from Bills of Attainder (the constitutional prohibition) through the English statutory history will eventually reach Law French sources where atteindre is the operative verb.
Third, Kelham's Normand French Dictionary is the glossary authority Burrill cites here, and that work remains an important reference for Law French legal vocabulary. Researchers using Burrill's citation to Kelham should consult Kelham directly for variant spellings: atteint, atteynt are recorded forms of the past participle and adjective meaning "convicted" or "found guilty."
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the only Law Mind shelf source recording this term. His entry, drawing on Kelham, is compact but covers both the verbal and adjectival/participial forms: atteindre (verb), atteint/atteynt (past participle — convicted, found guilty, proved, adjudged). The dual meaning — "to attaint/convict" and "to attain/obtain/abide by" — reflects genuine ambiguity in Law French usage and is not an error in Burrill's entry.
What the historical dictionaries miss: neither Burrill nor his cited authority Kelham explains the procedural mechanics of how atteindre operated within the judgment record — whether it was the judge's pronouncement, the jury's finding, or the formal record entry. Researchers needing that procedural precision must turn to Year Book scholarship or specialized histories of attainder proceedings rather than relying on the dictionary entry alone.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term is historical and English in origin, drawn from the Norman-French legal culture imposed after the Conquest. It has no direct modern jurisdictional variant — its relevance is confined to English legal history and records predating the displacement of Law French from pleading (effectively the seventeenth century). American law inherits the attainder doctrine through English common law, but American sources do not use atteindre directly.
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