Definition
Nient comprise is a Law French pleading exception meaning "not comprised" or "not contained." It was raised in response to a petition when the relief sought was not actually contained in, or supported by, the underlying deed, instrument, or proceeding upon which the petition was founded. In other words, the petitioner had grounded a request on a document that did not in fact include the thing being asked for. The exception operated as a threshold objection: before any merits could be reached, the respondent could challenge whether the foundational instrument actually supported the claim being made upon it.
Common Language
This is pure legal jargon of Law French origin with no meaningful counterpart in ordinary modern or historical English usage. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted.
Why It Matters in Research
Nient comprise belongs to the vocabulary of early English common law pleading and equity practice and will appear almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth century sources — English year books, plea rolls, equity proceedings, and treatises on common law forms. Researchers encountering this term should treat it as a marker of archaic pleading procedure rather than a substantive legal doctrine with ongoing vitality.
The practical trap for corpus researchers is that nient comprise can be confused with other Law French "nient" exceptions — nient culpable (not guilty), nient dedire (not to deny), and nient le fait (not his deed) — all of which sound structurally similar but operate in entirely different procedural contexts. Nient comprise is specific to the petition context and the sufficiency of the underlying instrument.
Because Rapalje & Lawrence's entry appears corrupted or misprinted in the source material — the definition runs directly into unrelated entries for "next of kin," "next of testator's name," and similar terms — researchers using that dictionary should be aware that the entry as printed offers little standalone guidance and may reflect a typesetting error or binding artifact in the edition consulted. Black's entry, citing Tomlins, is the more reliable historical anchor.
The term will not appear in modern procedural codes. Common law pleading was substantially abolished in most jurisdictions by the nineteenth century reforms (the Field Code in the United States; the Judicature Acts in England), and with it, the formal exception of nient comprise disappeared from active use. Researchers encountering it in later sources are almost certainly dealing with a historical quotation or treatise discussion rather than live procedural practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on the core definition: nient comprise means "not contained" and names an exception taken to a petition on the ground that the thing desired is not found in the foundational deed or proceeding. The agreement ends there in practical terms, because Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is garbled in the available text, running into adjacent entries without completing the definition or providing useful elaboration.
Black's entry, though brief, is the more useful of the two. It cites Tomlins — a reference to Thomas Edlyne Tomlins's Law Dictionary (various editions, late eighteenth and early nineteenth century) — which locates nient comprise firmly in the tradition of English legal lexicography drawing on common law pleading practice.
Neither dictionary provides substantial procedural context: neither explains what happened after the exception was sustained or overruled, what courts entertained it, or how it interacted with other pleading exceptions. Researchers needing procedural depth will need to look beyond the dictionary sources to treatises on common law pleading such as Gould's or Stephen's.
Jurisdictional Note
Nient comprise was a feature of English common law and equity pleading. Its reception in American colonial and early republic practice varied by jurisdiction, and it did not survive pleading reform in most American states. English use similarly faded with nineteenth century procedural reform. It is today a historical term only.