Les Termes De La Ley: Certain difficult and Obscure Words And Terms Of The Common And Statute Laws Of This Realm, Now In Use, Expounded And Explained

[Rastell, John]. [Rastell, William]. Les Termes de la Ley: Or, Certain Difficult and Obscure Words and Terms of the Common and Statute Laws of This Realm, Now in Use, Expounded and Explained. Corrected and Enlarged, with the Addition of Many Other Words; Particularly of Those Introduced into the Statute Law of Great Britain, Never Printed in Any Other Impression. [London]: Printed by Eliz.

Nutt and R. Gosling, 1721. [iv], 592 pp. Reprint available March 2006 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-547-5. Cloth. * Last and best edition of the first English law dictionary. Corrected and greatly enlarged with English and Law French in parallel columns. This edition was translated by his son, William Rastell [1508?-1565], who is often listed as its author.

First published in 1527, this pioneering dictionary was originally written in Law French with the Latin title Expositiones Terminorum Legum Anglorumae. Quite popular with students and lawyers due to its clarity and concision, it went through at least twenty-five editions by 1721. A final reissue appeared in 1819.

As Marvin observes, it is a useful dictionary because it "reflects the common law at the close of the year-book period with much fidelity.": Legal Bibliography (1847) 599.