Definition
A pluries writ is a third writ of the same kind issued in a proceeding after an original writ and an alias writ have both been issued and returned without effect — that is, after two prior commands to the officer have been disregarded or have failed. The pluries writ is substantively identical to its predecessors but is distinguished by the insertion of a recital phrase acknowledging the prior commands: "as we have often commanded you" (sicut pluries praecepimus). This phrase signals to the court and the officer that the writ is not a first or second attempt, but a third, and that the court is aware of the pattern of non-execution. Beyond the third instance, additional writs of the same form could issue and would continue to bear the pluries designation, as the phrase accommodated repeated issuance without requiring new nomenclature.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A writ issued in the third place, after two former writs have been disregarded.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A writ issued in the third place, after two former writs have been disregarded.
Editorial note: The common definitions here are accurate as far as they go, but both are borrowed directly from legal usage — pluries has no independent life in ordinary English. The dictionaries treat it as a legal term of art, not a general vocabulary word. Researchers should not expect any gap between common and legal meaning; there is simply no common meaning to speak of.
Common Confusion
PLURIES vs. ALIAS: These terms form a sequential pair that researchers frequently encounter together, and the sequence matters. An alias writ is the second writ — issued after the original has failed. A pluries writ is the third. The confusion arises because sources sometimes use "alias" loosely to mean any subsequent writ, but technically alias belongs only to the second instance. Cross-references in the historical dictionaries (notably Rapalje & Lawrence directing to ALIAS) reinforce this distinction.
PLURIES vs. ORIGINAL WRIT: The original writ initiates the process; the pluries writ perpetuates it after two failures. They are formally identical in command but carry different procedural histories and different recital language.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century common law pleading and procedure records will encounter pluries writs primarily in the context of capias practice — the sequential issuance of writs to compel a defendant's appearance or a sheriff's execution. The term is essentially obsolete in modern American practice, where simplified civil procedure rules replaced the Latin writ system, but it remains essential for reading historical court records, pleading books, and practice manuals.
Several research traps deserve attention. First, pluries appears in abbreviated or variant spellings in manuscript court records — "plur.," "pluries wr.," or as part of a longer Latin recital — and may not be indexed under a single consistent heading. Second, because the pluries writ's legal effect was identical to the original and alias, some older digests and abridgments do not treat it as a separate procedural event but fold it into general discussions of alias process. A researcher looking for the procedural history of a particular action may need to count writs carefully rather than relying on narrative summaries. Third, in jurisdictions that retained Latin forms longer than others (notably some state courts into the mid-nineteenth century), pluries writs appear in records well after they had disappeared from English practice.
The corpus connection to capias practice is direct. Any research thread involving the pursuit of a defendant across multiple writs — particularly in debt, trespass, or criminal proceedings — will potentially generate a pluries writ. Understanding the term helps researchers reconstruct a timeline of enforcement attempts from docket and file entries.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries converge on the same core definition: a third writ issued after original and alias writs have failed, distinguished by the sicut pluries praecepimus recital. Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Comm. 283) is the common authority cited by both Black's editions and Rapalje & Lawrence, which anchors the definition firmly in the classical common law writ system.
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the most technically precise of the historical sources, providing the full Latin recital in context (Praecipimus tibi, sicut PLURIES praeceperimus, quod) and emphasizing that "pluries" is specifically the emphatic word — the operative marker — rather than just a label for the writ. This is a useful distinction: the writ does not have an independent name so much as a characteristic verbal signature. Burrill also notes that the clause had already been assimilated into standard forms by the time he wrote, suggesting the term was already moving toward technical obscurity even within professional usage.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides the most contextual framing, identifying pluries as the emphatic word in the Latin writ form and situating it within a larger system of sequential process — original, alias, pluries. Anderson's entry begins with a cross-reference structure that connects pluries to a broader network of procedural terms, which is useful for corpus navigation.
What the historical dictionaries largely omit is any treatment of what happened after the pluries — whether a fourth or fifth writ simply continued to bear the pluries designation, or whether further sequential labels existed. Practice authorities suggest that subsequent writs after the third continued as pluries writs, but this is not addressed systematically in any of the five sources consulted.
Jurisdictional Note
Pluries practice was a feature of common law writ procedure and was therefore relevant wherever that system operated — England, and American jurisdictions following English practice. The adoption of code pleading (beginning with New York's Field Code of 1848) and later the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure effectively abolished the sequential writ system in most American courts, rendering pluries a historical term in those jurisdictions. English and colonial practice materials will show the heaviest use.