CHEAUNCE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CHEAUNCEAuthored

The Law Mind • 589 words

Definition

An Anglo-Norman legal term meaning accident or chance. Derived from the Law French "chance," cheaunce denotes an unforeseen occurrence or fortuitous event — something that befalls a person without design or intention. In medieval common law usage, the term carried significance in distinguishing intentional acts from those resulting from mischance, particularly in contexts involving liability, homicide, and the allocation of legal consequence for unplanned outcomes.

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Common Confusion

Cheaunce should not be confused with CHECK or CHEQUE, which appears immediately following it in several historical law dictionaries due to alphabetical proximity. The two terms share no conceptual relationship. Researchers scanning early dictionary columns should take care not to conflate entries that run together without clear visual separation in older typeset volumes.

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Why It Matters in Research

This term is almost exclusively encountered in historical legal sources — year books, medieval plea rolls, and early common law treatises written in or drawing upon Law French. Researchers working in pre-modern English legal materials, particularly those touching on accidental death, manslaughter, or early negligence concepts, may encounter cheaunce as part of the analytical vocabulary used to distinguish culpable from non-culpable acts.

The term belongs to a cluster of Law French vocabulary that shaped the foundational categories of common law liability. Understanding cheaunce alongside related terms such as misadventure and per infortunium is essential for reading early sources accurately, because the distinctions these words carried — between chance, misfortune, and willful act — were legally operative, not merely descriptive. Modern translations of year book material sometimes render cheaunce simply as "accident" without flagging the legal freight the word originally bore.

Because Law French terms often appear in anglicized, corrupted, or variant spellings across manuscripts, researchers should search for variant forms (chance, chauce, cheaunce) when working in corpus sources that include original or near-original language texts.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary defines cheaunce as "an accident," citing Kelham's law glossary as authority. The entry is brief, reflecting the term's narrow functional role as a gloss on the Anglo-Norman "chance" rather than a fully developed legal concept with its own doctrinal apparatus.

Kelham's Normand Dictionary, referenced by Burrill, is among the most important secondary sources for Law French vocabulary and provides the most detailed treatment of terms like cheaunce in their linguistic and legal context. Burrill does not develop the doctrinal implications of the term beyond its basic gloss, which is characteristic of his handling of obsolete Law French vocabulary — he records and traces the word without reconstructing the legal framework in which it operated.

No substantial divergence exists among historical dictionaries on the core meaning. The term is uniformly treated as signifying accident or fortuitous event. What historical sources collectively underserve is the analytical work this concept did within early common law: the distinction between acts done by cheaunce and acts done with felonious intent was fundamental to whether a killing was treated as murder, manslaughter, or excusable homicide. That doctrinal architecture is present in the year books and early treatises but not reconstructed in the dictionary literature.

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Jurisdictional Note

Cheaunce is a term of English common law origin with no independent development in other legal systems. It has no operative role in modern American, Canadian, or Commonwealth law, where its conceptual function is absorbed by terms such as accident, misadventure, and unintentional act.

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CHEAUNCEmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

L. Fr. chance. Kelham. An accident; CHECER, Cheser. L. Fr. To fall. Checer in debat; to come in question or debate. Kelham. See Cheir. CHECK, Cheque. A written order or request addressed to a bank, or to persons carrying on the business of bankers, by a party having money in their hands, requesting them to pay, on presentment, to a person therein named, or to him or bearer, or order, a named sum of money.* Chitty on Bills, 511, (Perkin's ed. 1854). Story on Prom. Notes, § 487. A check nearly resembles a bill of exchange, yet it differs from it in several particulars, the principal of which are the following: (1) a check is drawn upon an existing fund, and is an absolute transfer or appropriation to the holder, of so much money in the hands of the drawee; (2) it requires no acceptance, and when presented the presentment is for payment; (3) it is always payable on presentation and demand, and is not entitled to days of grace; and (4) the drawer is always the principal. See 3 Kent's Com. 75, 104, note. Story on Prom. Notes, § 489. Story, J. 2 Story's R. 512. 21 Wendell's R. 372. 2 Hill's (N. Y.) R. 425. And see 5 Ohio St. R. 13, 17, where the distinctions are laid down in detail. As to the necessity of diligence in presenting a check for payment, see Id. ibid. 2 Hill's R. 425. A draft for money in the usual form of a check, but payable on a future specified day, is a bill of exchange, and entitled to days of grace. 5 Ohio St. R. 13. See 2 Selden's R. 412.