Definition
In old pleading, *triplicare* is the Latin term for the act of rejoining — that is, answering a plaintiff's replication. It describes the third pleading step from the defendant's perspective in the extended common law pleading sequence: after the defendant's plea, the plaintiff's replication, the defendant then *triplicates* by filing a rejoinder (sometimes called the triplication itself) responding to what the plaintiff has alleged in replication.
The term belongs to the vocabulary of multi-round common law pleading, in which the parties could, in theory, exchange successive responsive pleadings — plea, replication, rejoinder, surrejoinder, rebutter, surrebutter — each narrowing the issues in dispute. *Triplicare* names the defendant's act at the rejoinder stage of that sequence.
Common Language
This is pure Latin legal jargon with no meaningful counterpart in modern ordinary English. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted.
Common Confusion
*Triplicare* is easily confused with the closely related pleading terms that surround it in sequence. The replication belongs to the plaintiff; the triplication (the act of *triplicare*) belongs to the defendant. Researchers accustomed to modern usage may also conflate *triplicare* with *duplicare* — the act of doubling, or filing the defendant's first responsive plea — but these are distinct stages. *Duplicare* precedes *triplicare* in the sequence. The terms are positional: each names a specific turn in the pleading exchange, not a generic act of responding.
Why It Matters in Research
*Triplicare* appears almost exclusively in medieval and early modern Latin pleading records, yearbooks, and treatises on common law procedure. Researchers working with pre-modern English court records — particularly Year Books, Bracton-era materials, or early chancery proceedings — will encounter this term embedded in Latin formulaic pleading language, often without translation.
The key navigational point: *triplicare* does not appear in modern procedural codes or contemporary case law. If it surfaces in a historical source, it signals that the document is describing a formal common law pleading exchange, and the researcher should reconstruct the full sequence to understand which party holds the initiative at that stage. The term indexes a particular moment in dispute — after the plaintiff has replied and the defendant is now responding to that reply — which can matter for understanding which allegations were contested and which were effectively conceded.
Burrill's illustrative passage (drawn from medieval Roman-canonical manumission procedure) shows that the term was not confined to English common law alone; it appeared in civil law and ecclesiastical contexts to describe the same structural concept — a third-round responsive pleading.
No modern procedural counterpart exists. Federal and state rules of civil procedure replaced the elaborate common law pleading sequence with simplified notice pleading. Researchers should not expect to find *triplicare* in post-nineteenth-century American or English practice materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source covering this term, and its treatment is brief but precise. Burrill defines *triplicare* as the act of rejoining — answering the plaintiff's replication — and supports the definition with a Latin passage from what appears to be a civil law or ecclesiastical source addressing manumission: the lord, having been met with the slave's replication asserting manumission, may *triplicare* by asserting that the manumission was neither sufficient nor complete.
The passage is instructive beyond mere definition. It confirms that *triplicare* described a substantive pleading act — raising a specific counter-allegation — not merely a formal procedural step. It also shows the term operating in a non-English legal context, suggesting that the concept of structured multi-round pleading with positional Latin names was shared across medieval legal systems and was not peculiar to the English common law tradition.
What historical dictionaries collectively miss: no shelf source traces the full pleading sequence in which *triplicare* sits, or explains why the sequence was eventually abandoned. Researchers needing that context should consult treatises on common law pleading history rather than the dictionary literature.
Jurisdictional Note
*Triplicare* as an operative term belongs to historical English common law pleading and parallel medieval civil and ecclesiastical procedure. It has no current jurisdictional relevance in any modern common law or civil law system.