Definition
A Law French numeral meaning "two." Used in medieval English legal records and pleadings to denote the number two, appearing in compound legal phrases and property descriptions drawn from the Anglo-Norman legal vocabulary that dominated English court practice from the Norman Conquest through the early modern period.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Sweet (French adjective, describing taste or temperament).
Historical common usage: The word derives from Old French and retains its primary sense of "sweet" in ordinary French usage across all periods.
Editorial note: The gap here is total rather than partial. In ordinary French and English contexts, "doux" means sweet. In Law French legal usage, it functions as the numeral two — a meaning with no connection to the common definition. A researcher encountering "doux" in a legal manuscript should not apply the ordinary French sense at all.
Common Confusion
Doux is easily confused with its ordinary French meaning ("sweet") by researchers unfamiliar with Law French numerals. Additionally, Burrill cross-references DOVORRE / DOUREE (Law French for "dower"), which shares orthographic proximity and appears in similar historical document contexts. A researcher scanning medieval pleadings or property records should be alert to the distinction between doux as a numeral and douree as a reference to dower rights.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a manuscript and Year Book term. Researchers will encounter it in medieval English court records, conveyancing instruments, and legal pleadings written in Law French — the formal language of English courts from roughly the 13th through 17th centuries. Its significance is navigational: recognizing "doux" as a numeral prevents misreading of property descriptions, dates, and case references in primary sources.
Law French numerals generally do not appear in modern legal usage or post-abolition statutes. The term has no live legal application; its value is entirely archival. Researchers working in Year Books, Plea Rolls, or early English equity records should build familiarity with the core Law French numeral set, of which doux is one member.
Burrill's placement of DOVORRE / DOUREE immediately following this entry is itself useful navigational intelligence: the proximity reflects alphabetical convention in 19th-century legal dictionaries, not semantic connection. Do not allow that adjacency to suggest a substantive link between the numeral "two" and the dower-related term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical legal dictionary entry for this term, citing Kelham's Glossary of Norman and Old French Words as the authority. Burrill's treatment is minimal — a one-line identification of meaning and source — consistent with his handling of Law French numerals generally. No substantive legal definition is offered beyond the translation, which is appropriate given that doux functions as vocabulary rather than doctrine.
The Kelham citation is significant: Robert Kelham's Glossary (1779) remains the standard reference for Law French terms in English legal records and is the most reliable historical source for confirming this reading. Researchers who need to verify the numeral meaning in a specific manuscript context should consult Kelham directly rather than relying solely on the Burrill summary.
No other historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — including Bouvier or Black — carry a dedicated entry for this term, reflecting its narrow archival utility.