In obsolete legal language, one who commits adultery; an adulterer, particularly in Scottish and Northern English law.
From Old French avouter or avoutrer, derived from à ('to') + vout ('oath/vow'), suggesting the breaking of marriage vows. The term appears primarily in Scottish legal records from medieval and early modern periods.
Scottish court records used 'avouter' as a technical legal term for someone who violated marriage vows—it's fascinating because the legal system needed precise language for moral transgressions. The word reveals what society's judges thought was serious enough to require its own vocabulary.
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