Definition
A French word meaning "day," used in older English and American legal texts as a component of legal phrases and compound terms. JOUR does not appear as a standalone legal term in modern practice but survives in the historical record in three principal contexts:
1. As a root in compound legal phrases, most commonly JOUR EN BANC (a day in banc, meaning a day before the full court sitting together) and JOUR EN PAYS (a day in the country, referring to proceedings at nisi prius rather than before the full court).
2. As part of the phrase JOUR COURT (day in court; an appearance day; the day assigned to a party to appear before the court). Historical practice assigned defendants a specific day to appear, and the jour court was that fixed day.
3. As a component of common English words that retain legal and commercial significance: journal (a day-book, used in accounting and legislative records), journeyman (a worker hired by the day), and journeys account (a measure of time used in certain common law procedural contexts).
The related phrase ALLER SANS JOUR — sometimes rendered in abbreviated form through the Rapalje & Lawrence entry — means "to go without day," signifying the final dismissal of a case without fixing any further appearance date. This was equivalent to a final judgment of dismissal in the defendant's favor.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An abbreviation for journeyman, as in "jour printer."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): JOUR appears as an abbreviation for journeyman, denoting a worker who has completed apprenticeship and works for daily wages.
The legal usage of JOUR has nothing to do with journeyman status. In legal texts, JOUR signals a procedural day or appearance date. Researchers encountering JOUR in historical pleadings, writs, or court records should read it as a date-related term, not a reference to a worker's guild classification.
Common Confusion
JOUR EN BANC versus JOUR EN PAYS: These phrases are specifically distinguished in the older sources. Jour en banc is a day before the full court (in banc); jour en pays is a day before a jury in the country, i.e., at nisi prius before a single judge on circuit. The distinction matters when reading older English reports because the type of "day" assigned to a case determined the forum and procedural posture.
ALLER SANS JOUR (to go without day) is sometimes confused with a continuance or adjournment. A continuance fixes a new day; aller sans jour means no new day is fixed at all — it is a final disposition.
Why It Matters in Research
JOUR appears almost exclusively in pre-19th century legal materials: Year Books, early English reports, and older American practice manuals. Researchers working in this portion of the Law Mind corpus will encounter it embedded in phrases rather than standing alone, and misreading it as an unfamiliar proper noun or abbreviation is a common error.
The key navigational point: when JOUR appears in a procedural context, it almost always concerns the scheduling or termination of court appearances. The phrase structure tells you which: JOUR COURT means an appearance was scheduled; SANS JOUR or ALLER SANS JOUR means the case was finally closed. Neither has a direct modern procedural equivalent, though aller sans jour maps roughly onto a final dismissal with prejudice.
JOURNEYS ACCOUNT is a distinct term of art in its own right, referring to the period within which a writ of entry could be brought after a prior action failed. It deserves its own lookup and should not be conflated with the general use of JOUR as "day."
Researchers should also be alert to the fact that JOURNAL in its legal sense — a day-book or formal record of daily proceedings — connects directly to this root. Legislative journals, court journals, and commercial journals all carry this meaning into modern practice, though the French origin is no longer apparent.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in agreement on the core definition: JOUR means "day" in French and appears in older law-books. Black's (1st Ed.) is brief; Black's (2nd Ed.) adds the important distinction between JOUR EN BANC and JOUR EN PAYS and supplies the JOUR COURT definition. Bouvier is the most expansive, noting the productive role of JOUR as a word-forming element and listing journal, journeyman, and journeys account as derivatives. Rapalje & Lawrence pivot quickly from JOUR itself to the phrase aller sans jour, which they treat as the more practically significant entry.
None of the historical sources address JOUR as it might appear in American state court records of the colonial and early national period, where French law phrases persisted in some jurisdictions longer than in others. This gap is worth noting for researchers working with Louisiana, Quebec-influenced territories, or early Mid-Atlantic court records.
Jurisdictional Note
JOUR and its associated phrases are drawn from the common law tradition as inherited from Norman French legal usage. Louisiana researchers should be alert that jour and related terms may appear in civil law sources with subtly different procedural connotations, given Louisiana's French and Spanish civil law heritage.