Definition
A Law French verb meaning to fail, neglect, omit, or disappoint. Appearing in medieval legal pleadings and records written in Law French, *failler* expressed a party's default, omission, or failure to perform a duty or obligation. It carried the sense both of passive neglect (failing to act) and active disappointment of an expectation (failing to fulfill a promise or condition).
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter *failler* almost exclusively in transcribed or printed versions of early English common law records — plea rolls, year books, and related medieval legal materials composed in Law French. The term functions as a verb root that may appear in variant spellings (*faillir*, *failer*, *faille*) depending on the scribe, period, and editorial hand of the printed edition being consulted.
The practical research risk is misreading *failler* as a proper noun (a surname or place name) or conflating it with the English verb "to fail" without appreciating its specific legal register. In a Law French pleading context, *failler* signals a legally operative omission — a failure that has juristic consequence — not merely a factual shortcoming. Recognizing the term helps researchers parse the argumentative structure of medieval pleadings, where a party's *faillance* (failure) might ground a claim or a defense.
Because Law French was a technical legal dialect that persisted in English courts well past its currency as a spoken language, the same root appears across several centuries of legal record without meaningful change in meaning. Editors of year books and abridgments sometimes translate the term silently; others retain it. When working from untranslated or partially translated sources, recognizing *failler* as a term of legal art — rather than an unfamiliar French word — keeps the researcher on track.
Burrill attributes his entry to Kelham, referring to Robert Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman and Old French Language* (1779), which is the standard reference for Law French terms and a natural companion source for any researcher who encounters *failler* or its cognates in the field.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's single-entry treatment is brief but accurate: "To fail; to neglect; to omit; to disappoint." The four glosses are not redundant — they map the range of the term's application. "Fail" and "neglect" capture passive omission; "disappoint" reaches the sense of defeating a legitimate expectation, which in legal contexts shades toward breach. Burrill's citation to Kelham is the appropriate authority, and researchers who need fuller context for any specific appearance of the term in a source text should go directly to Kelham.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionary includes this term. Its absence from later American legal dictionaries reflects the declining use of Law French source materials in American legal practice by the mid-nineteenth century. The term is not found in Black's or Bouvier's, confirming that *failler* had receded entirely into historical and antiquarian legal research by that point.
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Jurisdictional Note
Relevant only to English legal history and sources governed by the common law before the formal displacement of Law French in English courts (largely complete by the eighteenth century). No American or modern Commonwealth jurisdiction uses the term in active legal practice.
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