{"id":15055,"date":"2018-01-12T13:48:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T12:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=15055"},"modified":"2018-01-12T13:48:47","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T12:48:47","slug":"baliffs-catchpoles-and-tipstaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=15055","title":{"rendered":"Baliffs, Catchpoles and Tipstaves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I learnt an interesting French word &#8211; <strong>huissier<\/strong> [\u0265i.sje], which means baliff, usher, process server, catchpole or tipstaff. <\/p>\n<p>It is an abbreviation of <em>huissier de justice<\/em>, an officer of the court who serves process and notices, seizes and auctions off property, and executes garnishments, levies, and evictions.<\/p>\n<p>It comes from the Vulgar Latin <em>*usti\u0101rius<\/em>, from <em>osti\u0101rius<\/em> (porter, doorman), from <em>ostium<\/em> (door, entrance, estuary).<\/p>\n<p>Related terms include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>huissier d&#8217;armes = sergeant at arms <\/li>\n<li>exploit d&#8217;huissier = writ<\/li>\n<li>constat d&#8217;huissier = bailiff&#8217;s report <\/li>\n<li>huissier audiencier = court usher<\/li>\n<li>envoyer l&#8217;huissier = to send in the bailiffs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You may be wondering, what&#8217;s a <strong>catchpole<\/strong> or <strong>tipstaff<\/strong>? I certainly am. I know a family called Catchpole, but don&#8217;t know what the word means.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Catchpole<\/strong> is an obsolete word for &#8220;A taxman, one who gathers taxes; A sheriff\u2019s officer, usually one who arrests debtors.&#8221; It comes from the Old French <em>chacepol<\/em> (one who chases fowls).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tipstaff<\/strong> is &#8220;A ceremonial staff, with a metal tip, carried by a constable or bailiff etc as a sign of office; An officer, of a court etc. who carries such a staff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sources: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/french-english\/huissier\">Reverso<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/huissier\">Wiktionary<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I learnt an interesting French word &#8211; huissier [\u0265i.sje], which means baliff, usher, process server, catchpole or tipstaff. It is an abbreviation of huissier de justice, an officer of the court who serves process and notices, seizes and auctions off property, and executes garnishments, levies, and evictions. It comes from the Vulgar Latin *usti\u0101rius, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,10,15,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-language","category-latin","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}