An archaic legal term referring to a formal accusation or charge brought against someone in court, similar to impeachment.
From 'appeach' plus the suffix '-ment,' creating a noun for the action or result of accusing. This term was particularly used in English legal documents from the 13th-16th centuries.
Medieval legal English was incredibly creative with suffixes—you could add '-ment' to almost any verb to make an official noun, creating a huge vocabulary of now-forgotten legal procedures and charges.
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