Acquittors

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who formally declare a defendant not guilty of a criminal charge ; those who absolve or clear someone from blame following a legal judgment ; persons who deliver a verdict of innocence in a judicial proceeding
2. Parties responsible for exonerating an accused person by determining lack of guilt ; agents who free someone from alleged wrongdoing through a court decision ; members of a tribunal or jury who find a defendant blameless
3. Those who officially pronounce someone free from criminal conviction ; decision-makers who dismiss charges by establishing nonculpability ; figures involved in issuing a ruling of not guilty in a legal context

Etymology: The core of "acquittors" is a Latin word for rest. Latin "quietus" meant "at rest" or "free," and in legal Latin it also meant a formal discharge of a debt. Its Old French descendant "quite" carried the same sense of being released from an obligation, and "acquit" was built on that base, with the prefix "ad-" adding the idea of bringing someone to that state of release. The sense of "quietus" that stayed in English is the one that surprises most readers. Shakespeare's Hamlet speaks of a "bare bodkin" that could make a "quietus" of life, meaning a settling of accounts or an ending. Its near relative "quiet" comes from the same Latin root, so the word for a judge clearing a defendant and the word for a calm room share an ancestor.

Synonyms: defendants, accused, exonerated parties, cleared persons

Antonyms: convicts, culprits, guilty parties, offenders