Essoin

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɪˈsɔɪn/

Definitions

1. A formal reason presented to excuse failure to appear in a legal proceeding
2. An official justification given to explain absence from a court hearing
3. A lawful excuse used to account for not attending a scheduled judicial session

Etymology: An essoin was a formal excuse for not appearing in a medieval English court, and its story runs through a Germanic word for "care" and a Latin verb for "to excuse oneself." The Old French "essoignier" came from Medieval Latin "exoniare" or "essoniare," meaning to excuse oneself or to accept an excuse, built from "ex-" and "sonium." That "sonium" traces back to a Proto-West Germanic word "*sunnju," meaning care or need, so the legal excuse is at root a matter of having a pressing concern that kept someone away. The word reached English in Middle English as "essoyne," carrying its courtroom sense with it. Its career was entirely legal: a person who could not attend court might send an essoin, and the court would decide whether the reason was valid. The sense of care-and-need survives, buried, in the Germanic core of the word.