Definition
To encroach upon or arrogate to oneself more than is rightfully due; to pull or draw toward oneself — as if with a hook — that which belongs to another or exceeds one's lawful entitlement. In its legal-historical usage, *encrocher* describes the act of seizing, appropriating, or usurping rights, jurisdiction, or property beyond what law or custom permits.
The term appears principally in law French contexts, most often in discussions of wrongful extension of authority — as when a lord, officer, or court draws to itself powers or revenues not properly belonging to it.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): *Encroach* — to gradually intrude on or impinge upon the rights, territory, or domain of another; to advance beyond proper limits.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): *Encroach* — to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another; to trespass; to intrude.
The common English word *encroach* and the law French *encrocher* share an origin and a conceptual core — both describe overreaching. But where modern common usage suggests gradual, almost passive trespass, *encrocher* in legal sources carries an active, grasping quality: to draw forcibly toward oneself, as with a hook. The legal term emphasizes deliberate appropriation of what is not one's own, not merely inadvertent boundary-crossing. Researchers treating the terms as interchangeable risk missing this distinction in historical pleading and commentary.
---
Common Confusion
*Encrocher* is sometimes read as a direct ancestor of the modern tort concept of encroachment on real property. This is an oversimplification. While the etymological line is clear, *encrocher* in law French sources applies broadly to wrongful arrogation of rights, jurisdiction, revenues, or powers — not only to physical intrusion on land. A feudal officer who drew fees beyond his due *encroched*; a court that extended its jurisdiction *encroched*. The physical land-boundary sense that dominates modern real property law is a narrowed descendant, not an equivalent.
---
Why It Matters in Research
**Law French context is essential.** *Encrocher* is a law French term and will appear in pre-modern English legal sources in its French form or in close English transliteration. Researchers working in Year Books, Plowden's *Commentaries*, or early plea rolls must recognize the term in its original orthographic environment. Burrill's citation to Plowden at pages 94–95 (French edition) points to one of the canonical early modern common law sources; the term's appearance there signals its relevance to arguments about overreach of authority in the Tudor period.
**The hook etymology is analytically significant.** Burrill's gloss — "to pull or draw to, as with a hook (*croc*)" — is not mere antiquarian color. It signals that the term was understood to describe active grasping, not passive encroachment. When historical sources use *encrocher* or its derivatives in discussions of jurisdictional overreach or feudal exaction, the connotation of deliberate seizure should inform interpretation.
**Jurisdictional and institutional overreach.** The term appears in contexts involving the wrongful extension of judicial or seigniorial authority — courts pulling cases into their jurisdiction improperly, lords drawing services or revenues beyond what tenure required. Researchers tracing the history of jurisdictional limits, prerogative writs, or feudal obligation will encounter *encrocher* in this administrative-legal sense.
**Burrill's entry is fragmentary.** The entry as preserved is incomplete — the text breaks off mid-sentence with a reference to *Endorse* being preferred over an unspecified alternative. This truncation means Burrill provides the core gloss but not the full doctrinal discussion. Researchers should treat the Plowden citation as the primary source and not assume Burrill's entry is exhaustive.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical dictionary source available for this term, and his entry is notably brief and structurally incomplete. He supplies the core etymological and semantic content — law French origin, the hook image, the sense of taking more than is due — and anchors the term with the Plowden reference. What Burrill does not provide is a developed doctrinal discussion or a taxonomy of contexts in which *encrocher* was charged.
The term does not appear to receive independent treatment in later major English legal dictionaries (Bouvier, Black's early editions), which suggests it had receded from active legal vocabulary by the nineteenth century, surviving mainly as an etymological source for the anglicized *encroach* rather than as a working term of art.
The Plowden citation deserves weight: Plowden's *Commentaries* (Elizabethan era) represent careful legal reasoning in a period when law French remained a living medium for legal argument. A term appearing there is not merely archaic but was jurisprudentially operative at the time of that work's composition.
---
Jurisdictional Note
*Encrocher* is a term of English common law in its law French phase and has no direct parallel in civil law or civilian-influenced American jurisdictions. American researchers will encounter it only in historical common law materials tracing English doctrine. Its doctrinal descendants — encroachment, usurpation, surplusage of authority — are the operative modern terms.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Encroachment (real property and jurisdictional dimensions); Feudal Tenure and Exaction (seigniorial overreach context); Law French and Legal Language (linguistic and interpretive framework).
---