An archaic legal term meaning placed in or delivered by hand, specifically used to describe property officially transferred through the ritual of placing it in someone's palm.
From Old French 'appaumé,' the past participle of 'appaume,' literally meaning 'put-in-palm.' This passive form crystallized into a legal status descriptor in Middle English property law.
This word shows how English borrowed legal terminology wholesale from French after 1066—entire systems of property law came with French vocabulary attached, and some of these technical terms survived for centuries even as the rituals themselves became obsolete.
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