Approvement

n. approval, endorsement

(n.)
Improvement of common lands, by inclosing and converting them to the uses of husbandry for the advantage of the lord of the manor.
  

(n.)
Approbation.
  

(n.)
a confession of guilt by a prisoner charged with treason or felony, together with an accusation of his accomplish and a giving evidence against them in order to obtain his own pardon. The term is no longer in use; it corresponded to what is now known as turning king's (or queen's) evidence in England, and state's evidence in the United States.
  

English Law. 1. The inclosing of common land within the lord's waste, so as to leave egress and regress to a tenant who is a commoner.

2. The augmentation of the profits of land.

3. The act by which a person indicted of treason or felony, and arraigned for the same, confesses the same before any plea pleaded, and accuses others, his accomplices, of the same crime, in order to obtain his pardon. This practice is disused. In modern practice, an accomplice is permitted to give evidence against his associates. In Vermont, on a trial for adultery, it was held that a particeps criminis was not a competent witness, because no person can be allowed to testify his own guilt or turpitude to convict another.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.

APPROVAZIONE