Attainders

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of declaring a person or group as stripped of their civil rights, particularly due to conviction of a serious crime
2. A legal process through which a person's rights and property are forfeited as a consequence of felony
3. A historical term referring to the loss of status and privileges resulting from a criminal conviction, especially in relation to titles and inheritance

Etymology: Attainders are the forfeitures that followed a conviction for felony in English law: a convicted person lost their civil rights, and their land and goods passed to the Crown. The plural form simply refers to multiple such cases or the legal process in general. The noun traces back to Latin "attingere", meaning "to touch" or "to reach", which passed through Vulgar Latin "attangere" into Anglo-Norman "ataindre", "to reach". In medieval legal French, infinitives were often used as nouns, so "ataindre" came to name the act of reaching a sentence of forfeiture. The same Latin root gave English "attain", "to reach or achieve", which is a doublet of the legal term. The two words split apart as they came into English, one through the courtroom and one through ordinary speech, so the legal sense of reaching a person's property and rights stayed attached to the older legal vocabulary while "attain" moved toward everyday achievement.

Synonyms: disqualifications, forfeitures, losses