filacer

English

Etymology

From Old English filace (“a file or thread on which the records of the courts of justice were strung”), from French filasse (“tow of flax or hemp”), from Latin fīlum (“thread”).

Noun

filacer (plural filacers)

1. (British, law, obsolete) A former officer in the English Court of Common Pleas and the Court of King's Bench, so called because he filed the writs on which he made out process
   • 1817 December 20, House of Commons of the United Kingdom, “Second Report of the Commissioners for Examining into the Duties, Salaries and Emoluments, of the Officers, Clerks and Ministers, of the Several Courts of Justice, in England, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed;—as to the Court of Chancery”, in Reports from Committees: Fever; Ireland; Courts of Justice: Session 27 January – 10 June, 1818, volume VII, [London]: [s.n.], published 6 April 1818, →OCLC, page 172:

     When actions are brought in the Courts of King's Bench or Common Pleas, founded upon original writs issuing out of the Courts of Chancery (which writs, as stated in the Report of the 9th of April 1816, it is the duty of the Cursitors to make out) it has been the practice in certain cases for the Filacers of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas respectively, to receive from the Suitors the King's fines (if any) and also the fees payable to the Cursitors in respect of such original writs, and afterwards to account to the Cursitors for the fines and fees so received.

References

• “filacer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• life car, lifecar