ENGETTER

2 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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ENGETTERAuthored
The Law Mind • 621 words
Definition
An obsolete Law French term meaning to eject, cast out, or throw out. In medieval English legal usage, engetter described the act of physical or legal expulsion — the removal of a person from land or possession. The past participial form, engette, meant ejected or cast out. The term appears in early Anglo-Norman legal texts and is closely bound to the procedural and conceptual world of real property actions in pre-common law England.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering engetter in manuscript sources, early printed abridgments, or treatises drawing on Britton will find it embedded in the vocabulary of disseisin and ejectment. The term does not survive into modern legal usage; it was already archaic by the time English law reporting standardized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The principal trap for corpus researchers is conflation with the adjacent entry in Burrill — ENGIN or ENGYN — which carries an entirely different meaning (ill design, deceit, fraud). Because historical dictionaries frequently run these entries together on the page, a researcher skimming Burrill may incorrectly treat the fraud-related sense as belonging to engetter. They are distinct terms with distinct legal functions. Britton, the thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman legal treatise cited by Burrill at chapters 32, 34, and 40, is the primary textual home of engetter. Researchers working with Britton in translation should note that English renderings often substitute eject or oust without flagging the original Law French, making the underlying term invisible in translated sources. Because engetter belongs to the pre-Year Books stratum of English legal vocabulary, it will appear in Law Mind corpus materials associated with early real property doctrine, writs of entry, and the conceptual predecessors to the action of ejectment. It will not appear in post-medieval primary sources except as a historical gloss.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary shelf source for this term, and his entry is brief: the definition is functional (to eject; to cast or throw out), the past participle engette is noted, and the citation runs directly to Britton. No doctrinal elaboration is offered, which is consistent with a term that carried operational rather than conceptual weight — it described what happened rather than defining a legal standard. Burrill's placement of this entry immediately before his treatment of ENGIN is worth flagging. The visual proximity of a term meaning ejection to a term meaning fraud and deceit invites confusion, but the two terms are etymologically and legally unrelated. Historical dictionary users should treat the page break between them as meaningful. No other shelf sources in the Law Mind corpus appear to carry independent entries for engetter. Its appearance in secondary historical dictionaries, where it appears at all, derives from Burrill or directly from Britton. The term is absent from later systematic law dictionaries such as Black's, confirming that it passed out of active legal vocabulary well before the nineteenth century.
Jurisdictional Note
Engetter is exclusively a term of early English law, appearing in Anglo-Norman legal materials. It has no counterpart in Scottish, continental, or American legal usage. Researchers working in non-English common law traditions will not encounter it.
Related Terms
Ejectment — the common law action that absorbed and replaced the older vocabulary of ejection to which engetter belonged Disseisin — unlawful dispossession; the condition that real property actions sought to remedy Ouster — expulsion from possession; the modern functional equivalent Engin / Engyn — adjacent entry in Burrill; distinct meaning (fraudill design); easily confused in historical sources EntryWrit of — early real property writ closely associated with the procedural context in which engetter appears Britton — the Anglo-Norman treatise that is the primary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus
ENGETTERmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
L. Fr. To eject; to cast or throw out. Engette; ejected. Britt. c. 32, 34, 40. ENGIN, Enghein. L. Fr. Ill design; deceit; fraud. Kelham. See Engyn. "ENGINE," said to be a word of very general signification; and when used in an act, its meaning must be sought out from the act itself, and the language which surrounds it, and also from other acts in pari materia, in which it occurs. Abbott, J. 6 M. & S. 192. In a large sense, it applies to all utensils and tools which afford the means of carrying on a trade. But in a more limited sense it means a thing of considerable dimensions, of a fixed or permanent nature, analogous to an erection or building. Id. 182. ENGLECERY, Englecherie, Englescherie, Engleschery. L. Fr. and Eng. [L. Lat. Englescheria, Engleceria, Anglescheria.] In old English law. The fact of being an Englishman; Englishery; (Anglietas, nativitas Anglica). Spelman, voc. Englecheria. Bract. fol. 135. Fleta, lib. 1, c. 30. 2 Reeves' Hist. 22. 4 Bl. Com. 195. In Bracton's time it was the law that, where a person was found killed, he was presumed to be a Frenchman, (Francigena,) unless Engleschery, (that is the fact of his being an Englishman,) was proved by the relations and presented before the justices. Bract. ub. sup. Britt. c. 6. This law was introduced first by Canute and afterwards by William the Conqueror, for the greater protection of their respective subjects from ENFRAUNCHIR, Enfranchir. L. Fr. assassination; a much heavier fine being [from en, in, and fraunk, free.] To make imposed upon the vill or hundred, for kilfree; to confer a privilege or liberty; to ling a Dane or Norman, than a native. enfranchise, (q. v.) Enfraunchys par char-Spelman. It was an object, therefore, to

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