Definition
An archaic legal Latin term from old English law referring to the tackle and furniture of a cart or wain — that is, the harness, fittings, and movable equipment associated with a wagon or cart used for hauling. The term encompasses the functional accessories that made a draft vehicle operable, as distinct from the vehicle itself.
Why It Matters in Research
Falare is a term of vanishingly narrow historical application. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in medieval English property disputes, estate inventories, manorial records, or early common law pleadings where the contents and equipment of a farm or household were itemized. In such contexts, the distinction between the cart or wain itself and its falare could carry legal weight — for example, in determining what passed with a bequest, what was seized under a writ, or what was covered by a covenant.
The term appears in all three major historical dictionaries under essentially identical entries, each citing Blount — meaning Thomas Blount's Nomo-Lexicon: A Law-Dictionary (1670) is the root source for the definition as received. Researchers tracing this term beyond the dictionary shelf should go directly to Blount rather than treating the dictionary consensus as independently verified.
Because falare describes a category of personal property, it may appear in corpus materials alongside related terms for chattels, farm equipment, and draft animals. It is unlikely to appear in modern legal contexts; any encounter with the term outside of historical documents or antiquarian legal writing warrants careful attention to whether the source is genuinely period or is reproducing an older authority.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's converge entirely on this entry, all defining falare as "the tackle and furniture of a cart or wain" and all citing Blount as authority. There is no substantive divergence among the three. Burrill adds the notation "L. Lat." — legal Latin — which is useful for researchers classifying the term linguistically. No dictionary expands beyond the single-sentence definition or provides illustrative historical usage beyond the Blount citation.
The uniformity here reflects a pattern common to highly archaic terms: once a definition enters the legal dictionary tradition via a single authority (here, Blount), it is carried forward without independent verification or expansion. Researchers should not mistake consensus among the dictionaries for corroboration; they are all drawing from one well.
Jurisdictional Note
Falare is a term of old English law with no counterpart in American legal usage. It has no jurisdictional variation in the modern sense — it belongs entirely to the historical common law tradition of England and would appear, if at all, only in pre-modern English legal documents.