Definition
An archaic Law French and early English legal spelling of ERROR. In historical legal manuscripts, plea rolls, and printed authorities, ERROUR designates a mistake, misapplication of law, or procedural defect — particularly one that forms the basis of a writ of error seeking reversal of a judgment. The term carries no meaning distinct from ERROR; it is entirely a variant of spelling, not of substance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Obsolete spelling of error.
Historical common usage: Not separately treated in Webster's 1913; the standard spelling "error" is used throughout that period.
Editorial note: There is no gap between the common and legal meanings here — ERROUR is simply the older orthographic form. Researchers encountering it in historical sources should read it as ERROR without adjustment for meaning.
Common Confusion
ERROUR vs. ERROR: These are the same term. The -OUR spelling reflects Law French orthographic conventions and the influence of French on early English legal writing, which persisted in printed legal literature well past its use in ordinary prose. A researcher who encounters ERROUR in a plea roll, abridgment, or early treatise and searches only under ERROR may miss relevant index entries in sources that preserve the older spelling — and vice versa. When working in manuscript sources or early printed books, check both spellings.
ERROUR vs. MISTAKE: Even under the modern spelling, error and mistake carry distinct legal weights in certain contexts. Error typically refers to a legal or judicial miscalculation subject to appellate correction; mistake, in equity and contract law, refers to a party's false belief about a fact or law that may ground relief. ERROUR in historical sources, however, is used broadly for both senses and does not consistently track this distinction.
Why It Matters in Research
The sole research significance of ERROUR is orthographic. It appears in Law French materials, early common law abridgments, and printed English legal texts from roughly the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Britton (Britt. c. 26), the Anglo-Norman law text cited by Burrill, uses this spelling as a matter of course, and researchers working in that tradition will encounter it regularly.
Practical traps: Digitized full-text search of early printed sources and manuscript transcriptions will not automatically normalize ERROUR to ERROR. A search limited to the modern spelling will produce false negatives in corpora that preserve original orthography. When constructing searches in Law Mind's historical materials, run both terms.
Index navigation: Early printed abridgments and digests may alphabetize under ERROUR or may cross-reference to ERROR inconsistently. Check both headwords when working through tables of contents or manuscript indexes in materials predating the eighteenth century.
Substantive law of error: For the underlying doctrine — writs of error, assignment of errors, reversible vs. harmless error — researchers should proceed directly to the entry for ERROR, where the full treatment of the concept and its historical development is located.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's treatment is deliberately minimal: "L. Fr. [from Lat. error,] Error; mistake." The citation to Britton, c. 26 confirms the term's appearance in Anglo-Norman legal literature. Burrill does not elaborate because there is nothing to elaborate — ERROUR is not a term of art with independent doctrinal content. No substantive divergence exists between Burrill and other historical dictionary sources; the entry is a spelling gloss, not a conceptual definition. Older dictionaries such as Cowell's Interpreter and Blount's Nomo-Lexicon address the underlying concept under ERROR or erroure without assigning distinct meanings to the variant spellings.