Definition
To indict is to formally charge a person with a crime through the findings of a grand jury. The grand jury reviews evidence presented by the prosecution and, if it finds probable cause to believe the accused committed the charged offense, returns an indictment. The act of indicting is distinct from the indictment itself — to indict is the verb; the indictment is the resulting formal accusation and the instrument that initiates prosecution.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To accuse of wrongdoing or charge; more specifically, to make a formal accusation for a crime against a party by the findings of a jury, especially a grand jury.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To charge with a crime, in due form of law, by the finding or presentment of a grand jury. Webster's also notes two now-obsolete general meanings: to write or compose, and to appoint or proclaim publicly by authority.
The common and legal meanings are unusually close here, but the gap worth noting is one of scope. Everyday usage permits "indict" as a loose synonym for accuse or condemn in any sense — a report can "indict" a government policy, a speech can "indict" a social institution. The legal meaning is narrower and procedurally specific: indictment requires a grand jury acting under oath, within a formal criminal proceeding. When reading historical legal sources, the obsolete senses (to proclaim, to write) occasionally appear and should not be confused with the criminal-law meaning.
Common Confusion
INDICT vs. CHARGE vs. ACCUSE: These words overlap in ordinary speech but carry distinct legal weight. To accuse is informal. To charge is broader — a prosecutor may charge a defendant directly by information or complaint in jurisdictions and cases where grand jury indictment is not required. To indict means specifically that a grand jury has acted. In federal felony cases and in states that preserve the grand jury indictment requirement, a charge cannot proceed as an indictment unless the grand jury has found probable cause. Using these terms interchangeably in legal research will produce misleading results.
INDICT vs. INDICT (maritime, archaic): Burrill's notes an old maritime usage — to indict meant to proclaim or openly declare, as in proclaiming war. This sense is entirely obsolete in modern legal usage. Researchers encountering it in pre-nineteenth-century maritime texts should treat it as a term of art distinct from the criminal-law meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of understanding "indict" is navigational: the term is a gateway to the much richer doctrine surrounding indictments, grand juries, and the Fifth Amendment's Grand Jury Clause. Searching for "indict" in historical sources will surface a range of uses that require careful disambiguation — the criminal-law meaning, the archaic maritime meaning, and the general rhetorical sense.
Jurisdictional variation is a live research issue. The Fifth Amendment's requirement of grand jury indictment for serious federal crimes applies in federal court but has not been incorporated against the states. Many states have replaced or supplemented the grand jury indictment with the prosecutor's information. A researcher tracking whether a defendant was "indicted" must first confirm the jurisdiction and whether grand jury indictment was required for the charged offense.
Historical corpus users should note that older sources — including Burrill's — carry etymological content alongside legal content. The Greek and Latin roots (pointing out, presenting by name before a court) are philologically interesting but not legally operative. The substantive legal content in historical dictionaries is thin precisely because those sources consistently redirect to the entry for INDICTMENT. The action of indicting was not independently theorized; it was treated as inseparable from the instrument it produced.
Researchers working with nineteenth-century sources should also watch for the spelling variants Burrill flags — "indite" and "endite" — which appear in older English legal texts and represent the same procedural act.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries speak with one voice on the core definition: to indict is to accuse by the finding or presentment of a grand jury. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Burrill's are in complete agreement on this point, and all redirect substantive treatment to INDICTMENT.
Burrill's is the most historically detailed of the group, offering etymology and flagging the maritime usage alongside the criminal-law meaning. It also records the spelling variants "indite" and "endite," citing Cowell and Blount — references to seventeenth-century English legal lexicographers whose works appear in older common law scholarship.
The historical sources collectively reflect what the modern practitioner would expect: "indict" was always treated as a verb of procedure, defined by reference to the grand jury mechanism, not as a term requiring independent doctrinal elaboration.
Jurisdictional Note
The grand jury indictment requirement is constitutionally mandated for federal felonies under the Fifth Amendment but has not been incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Many states permit prosecution by information filed directly by a prosecutor. Researchers should not assume that a charge described as an "indictment" in a state-court context carried the same constitutional weight or procedural history as a federal indictment.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Fifth Amendment -- Grand Jury Indictment Clause (Constitutional Law Encyclopedia, constitutional_122)