Definition
RAP has two distinct legal meanings depending on context and era.
1. (Criminal charge; informal) A criminal charge, accusation, or count against a defendant. In modern American criminal practice, "a rap" refers colloquially but recognizably to a formal accusation or the consequences flowing from one — as in "taking the rap" (accepting punishment) or "a murder rap" (a murder charge). This usage permeates criminal procedure vocabulary, appearing in prosecutorial records, plea negotiations, and journalistic legal reporting.
2. (Historical Anglo-Saxon/Norman law) An archaic territorial and administrative division used in certain English counties, particularly Sussex. In this sense, a rap (also rendered rape) was a subdivision of the county, analogous to a hundred elsewhere in England, used for purposes of local governance, taxation, and jurisdiction. Burrill and other historical sources record the term in its Latin and Law French forms — Rape, Rap de femme — indicating the term's dual life as both a territorial unit and, in Law French usage, the crime of rape.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A sharp blow; colloquially, blame or criminal responsibility ("taking the rap"); casual conversation; rap music and its associated lyrics.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A lay or skein containing 120 yards of yarn." Webster's does not record the criminal-charge sense, reflecting how thoroughly that usage belongs to informal legal and journalistic register rather than standard dictionary English of the period.
Editorial note: The gap here is significant in two directions. The yarn-skein definition is entirely absent from legal usage and of no research relevance. More importantly, the modern common meaning — "the rap" as criminal blame or charge — straddles ordinary and legal language in a way that can confuse historical source-reading. When a 19th- or early-20th-century criminal record or newspaper uses "rap," it carries the charge/blame meaning; when a medieval or early modern English administrative source uses "rape" or "rap," it carries the territorial division meaning. These are unrelated terms that converged in spelling and must be distinguished by context.
Common Confusion
RAP (territorial division) vs. RAPE (crime): In Law French and early English legal records, "rape" and "rap" appear as variant spellings for both the territorial administrative unit and the criminal offense. Burrill's entry illustrates this directly, conflating "Rape" and "Rap de femme" in a single citation block. Researchers working in pre-modern English legal records must determine from context whether "rape" refers to a Sussex administrative district, a Law French transliteration of a territorial term, or the criminal charge. The territorial "rape of Sussex" and the crime of rape are etymologically unrelated; the orthographic overlap in historical manuscripts and law French texts is a genuine research trap.
RAP (criminal charge, informal) vs. INDICTMENT/COUNT: In modern usage, "rap" is informal and appears in colloquial legal writing, journalism, and slang. It is not a term of art in formal pleading. Researchers should not expect to find "rap" in statute or formal court documents; it lives in police reports, newspapers, and practitioner shorthand.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter RAP in the Law Mind corpus in at least three distinct registers, each requiring different interpretive care.
First, in medieval and early modern English administrative records — particularly those touching Sussex, Kent, or Surrey — "rape" as territorial division is a structural term that organizes jurisdiction, tax liability, and local court authority. Misreading it as the criminal offense will produce nonsensical results.
Second, in Law French sources, "Rap de femme" is the charge of rape against a woman — a criminal accusation, not an administrative unit. Burrill's citation to Britton (c. 1) places this squarely in the criminal law of the Norman period. The abbreviation and compressed citation style in Burrill (a characteristic of his dictionary throughout) means researchers must chase the underlying sources — Bracton, Britton, Lambarde's Archaionomia — to understand the procedural context of the charge.
Third, in 19th- and 20th-century American criminal records, newspapers, and practitioner documents, "rap" as informal synonym for criminal charge is pervasive. Its absence from Webster's 1913 confirms it was substandard or argot usage even when widely understood. Researchers mining historical criminal case files, pardon records, or legal journalism should treat it as reliable evidence of a charge or accusation without expecting formal definitional precision.
The RAP SHEET — a compiled record of a person's prior arrests and charges — is the most durable institutional descendant of this usage and remains in active law enforcement vocabulary today.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's treatment of RAP is minimal and compressed, as is typical of his handling of archaic Saxon and Law French terms. His entry bundles the territorial sense (citing Canute's laws and Lambarde's Archaionomia) with the Law French criminal charge sense (citing Britton), without distinguishing them as separate terms. This reflects the state of 19th-century legal lexicography regarding Anglo-Saxon and Norman materials: editors often grouped variant spellings and cognates without rigorous differentiation. Researchers relying on Burrill alone will not find adequate guidance on the territorial-administrative meaning; Spelman's Glossarium (also cited by Burrill) provides fuller treatment of the rape-as-division concept. No historical legal dictionary consulted gives extended treatment to "rap" as informal criminal-charge slang — that meaning postdates the primary period of comprehensive legal dictionary compilation.
Jurisdictional Note
The territorial rape/rap as administrative division is exclusively an English phenomenon, concentrated in Sussex. It has no American legal equivalent. The informal criminal-charge usage of "rap" is predominantly American in legal and journalistic records, though it appears in British criminal argot as well.