Definition
To accuse, indict, or bring a formal charge against a person. Historically used interchangeably with implead in the sense of initiating legal proceedings against another party, though its recorded usage skews toward the criminal or quasi-criminal context of accusation rather than the civil context of suing. Emplead is the older orthographic form and is now entirely obsolete in practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A synonym of implead.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To accuse; to indict. See Implead."
The common and legal meanings are effectively identical here, but both are archaic. Neither modern nor historical common usage preserves a gap from legal meaning — the word survives only as a relic in legal dictionaries. Researchers should not expect to encounter it outside historical legal documents or treatises referencing early English or Norman French practice.
Common Confusion
Emplead, implead, and indict overlap in historical sources but should be distinguished. Implead in its civil sense means to bring another party into a lawsuit — it carries no necessary connotation of criminal accusation. Emplead, as recorded in Black's and Burrill's, leans more consistently toward accusation or indictment, suggesting a criminal or quasi-criminal proceeding. Indict is the modern term of art for formal criminal charging by a grand jury. Researchers encountering emplead in a historical document should determine from context whether the proceeding was civil or criminal before mapping it to a modern equivalent.
Why It Matters in Research
Emplead is a research trap precisely because it looks like a variant spelling rather than a distinct word with its own usage history. Several cautions apply:
First, spelling instability is significant. Burrill notes the form "Enplead" as an alternate rendering, and the underlying French root empleder surfaces in Law French materials without consistent anglicization. Corpus searches using only "emplead" will miss variant forms; searches should include implead, enplead, empleder, and enpleder.
Second, the Black's definitions (1st and 2nd editions) define emplead specifically as "to indict; to prefer a charge against; to accuse" — framing it in criminal terms — while Burrill treats it as the older correct form of implead generally, which spans civil and criminal contexts. This divergence matters when dating a source: earlier materials (particularly those drawing on Britton or Cowell) may use emplead in the broader civil sense, while later Anglo-American usage, if it appears at all, tends toward the accusation meaning.
Third, the Britton citations in Burrill (c. 33, c. 11) place this term in 13th-century Anglo-Norman legal literature. Researchers working in early English legal history, Year Books, or Law French materials will encounter this term in its natural habitat. It is largely invisible in post-1700 common law sources.
Fourth, Law Mind corpus researchers should cross-reference emplead hits against implead entries and any surrounding procedural context — writ practice, pleading records, or indictment rolls — to determine what kind of proceeding is being described.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning but diverge in framing. Black's (both editions) treats emplead as a standalone term meaning to accuse or indict. Burrill takes the stronger scholarly position: emplead is the etymologically correct form, derived from the Old French empleder, of which implead is the later, anglicized corruption. Burrill also supplies the Law French phrase "Ne pleder ne estre emplede" (neither to plead nor to be impleaded) from Britton, which grounds the term in a specific feudal procedural context — the protection of certain persons from being drawn into litigation.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any sustained treatment of how emplead functioned procedurally in practice — what writs, courts, or formal mechanisms it described. The definitions are essentially lexicographic, not doctrinal. Researchers needing procedural depth should consult Britton directly and cross-reference with treatments of early English pleading practice in works such as Holdsworth's History of English Law.
Jurisdictional Note
Emplead is not operative in any modern jurisdiction. It is purely a historical term rooted in English common law and Law French practice. American legal materials do not use it.