Enditement

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A formal written charge stating that a person is suspected of committing a serious crime, drawn up for a court to consider
2. An archaic term for the official legal document that formally accuses someone of an offence before a court
3. The act or document by which a person is formally charged with a crime and brought forward for trial

Etymology: Before it meant a formal accusation, the root of this term meant to compose. Anglo-French "enditer" meant "to write, compose, or dictate," and it passed into Middle English as "endite," still used for putting words on paper. The sense of formally charging someone came from the legal use of the same verb, where a document set out the charge. "Enditement" is a Middle English spelling of the legal word "indictment," which is built on the same stem as "indict." The Anglo-French verb descends from Latin "indictare," meaning "to proclaim or declare publicly," and the "in-" prefix is the same one found in "indicate." English later reshaped the spelling of "indict" to suggest a link with Latin "dictare," "to say often," though the two words come from different Latin roots. Today "indict" is used almost only for formal accusations, while "endite" survives in the sense of writing, and "enditement" has dropped out of use.