Definition
An obsolete Law French term meaning to mix, blend, meddle with, or interfere and interpose. In historical legal usage, *meller* denotes the act of intermeddling or interposing in a matter — conduct that could give rise to legal liability or signify unlawful interference. The term is principally of lexical and etymological interest, serving as the root from which related legal terms (*melletum*, *medletum*) derive.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A melodrama, especially a film of that genre. Informal and chiefly American usage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded. The term does not appear to have carried general English currency in that period.
The common and legal meanings share no connection. The informal modern sense ("a melodrama") is a 20th-century clipping with no relation to the Law French root. Researchers encountering *meller* in a historical legal text should disregard the modern colloquial sense entirely.
Common Confusion
*Meller*, *melletum*, and *medletum* are closely related but distinct. *Meller* is the Law French verb — the act of intermeddling. *Melletum* (also *medletum*) is the Latinate noun form derived from it, used in old Scots law to denote dissension, contest, or strife. Researchers should be careful not to conflate the verbal root with its nominal derivatives, which carry specific legal charges in historical Scottish pleading. See MEDLETUM.
Why It Matters in Research
*Meller* itself rarely appears as a standalone term in legal proceedings; its significance is almost entirely as a lexical ancestor. Its primary research value is navigational: encountering *meller* in a historical source should prompt a researcher to look upstream to *medletum* and downstream to the broader family of intermeddling-related offenses — including the common law concept of maintenance (officious interference in litigation) and affray.
In old Scots law sources, the Latin derivative *melletum* appears in pleadings and glossaries related to violent disputes. Skene's *De Verborum Significatione* (1597), cited in Burrill, is the principal historical authority connecting the Law French root to the Scots Latin usage. Researchers working in pre-union Scottish legal records or early British legal glossaries will encounter this cluster of terms in contexts involving personal violence, public disorder, or unlawful interference.
The term does not appear to have had significant circulation in English common law pleading, where *meddle* and its derivatives were used in ordinary language rather than as formal legal terms of art.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole source in the Law Mind corpus for this term. Burrill cites Kelham's *Glossary of Norman and Old French Law Terms* for the core definition (to mix, blend, meddle, interfere) and Skene's *De Verborum Significatione* for the Scots Latin derivative *melletum*. The entry is brief and explicitly cross-referential, treating *meller* as a root rather than as a freestanding legal concept.
No entry for *meller* appears in Bouvier, Black (early editions), or the major common law dictionaries, confirming its narrow circulation and primarily etymological role. The historical record is thin but internally consistent: all authorities trace the same lineage from Law French intermeddling to Scots Latin contestation.
Jurisdictional Note
The operative legal significance of this term is confined to old Scots law. English common law sources use the vernacular *meddle* without elevating it to a formal term of art under this spelling. Researchers in English legal history will encounter the concept through related terms rather than *meller* directly.