Definition
Communis rixatrix is a Latin legal phrase from old English law meaning a common scold — specifically, a woman who habitually engaged in loud, quarrelsome, or abusive public speech to the disturbance of her neighbors. The term is the feminine Latin form of the concept, with rixatrix denoting a female brawler or quarreler. It was the formal indictment terminology for the common law offense of being a common scold, an offense tried in the court leet or by indictment at common law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No entry. The term is archaic Latin and has no current common usage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. Webster's does not include this Latin phrase, though "scold" appears as a verb and noun meaning one who scolds habitually.
This is pure legal Latin with no meaningful common counterpart in modern English. The section is omitted accordingly.
Common Confusion
Communis rixatrix is sometimes loosely treated as synonymous with the English phrase common scold, and for most research purposes they are interchangeable — communis rixatrix is simply the Latin indictment form of the same offense. The distinction matters only when reading original indictments or Latin pleading records, where the Latin form will appear rather than the English phrase. Researchers should also be careful not to conflate rixatrix with the more general Latin term for a brawler in civil contexts; in English legal sources, the term is term-of-art and offense-specific.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical English legal materials, particularly in indictment records, court leet proceedings, and treatises on criminal pleading from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Blackstone's Commentaries (4 Bl. Comm. 168) is the anchor citation in every dictionary entry, meaning most secondary sources trace back to a single passage — researchers should go to Blackstone directly rather than relying on dictionary paraphrase.
When searching historical corpus materials, expect to encounter both the Latin form (communis rixatrix) and the English equivalent (common scold) in different document types. Court records and formal indictments favor the Latin; treatises, abridgments, and later commentary use the English. A search on one form alone will miss a significant portion of the relevant material.
The offense was sex-specific as a matter of pleading: the Latin feminine form was required in indictments against women. There is some historical record of attempts to apply the common scold doctrine to men, but the traditional offense and its Latin label were gendered. This has implications for reading historical indictments — the appearance of communis rixatrix in a record is itself evidence of the sex of the accused and the specific charge being leveled.
The offense of common scold survived in American common law into the twentieth century in some jurisdictions before being struck down on constitutional grounds. However, the Latin phrase communis rixatrix essentially disappears from American legal documents after the colonial period; American courts and treatise writers used the English equivalent. Researchers working in American materials after roughly 1800 should search common scold rather than the Latin form.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries are in close agreement: communis rixatrix is defined as a common scold, with every entry pointing to 4 Blackstone's Commentaries 168 as the authoritative source. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the useful gloss of "common (female) brawler," which is slightly more precise than the bare common scold cross-reference and clarifies the gendered character of the term.
Burrill's entry notes the Latin law (L. Lat.) designation, flagging that this is Law Latin rather than classical Latin — a useful distinction for researchers encountering the term in medieval or early modern records, where law Latin terminology often diverged from classical usage.
None of the historical dictionaries address the American reception of the term or its fate in post-colonial jurisprudence, which is an omission researchers should keep in mind. The dictionary entries treat this as an English law artifact, and that framing is accurate for the Latin form of the term specifically.
Jurisdictional Note
As a Latin pleading term, communis rixatrix is effectively English law only. The underlying offense of common scold was received into American common law in several states, but the Latin designation was not carried forward in American practice. Louisiana, which followed civil law traditions, had no direct counterpart doctrine.