arraignment
Other forms: arraignments
If the police think you pulled a diamond heist, and they have enough evidence to charge you with that crime, you'll be called to court for your arraignment, when you can plead guilty or not guilty. The trial comes next.
Arraignment comes from the French word aresnier, which means to address, or speak reasonably. It's almost only used in the legal sense as answering for yourself, or pleading, "guilty" or "not guilty." The verb arraign means to call someone before the court to answer an accusation (called in legal speak, an indictment), so an arraignment is either the piece of paper that calls you to court, or the hearing in which that charge is read to you.
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the act of calling someone before a court to be formally charged and to enter a pleatype of:legal proceeding, proceeding, proceedings(law) the institution of a sequence of steps by which legal judgments are invoked
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a legal document calling someone to court to answer an indictmenttype of:instrument, legal document, legal instrument, official document(law) a document that states some contractual relationship or grants some right
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Vocabulary lists containing arraignment
After committing a violent crime, Cole Matthews is given a choice: jail time or isolation on a remote Alaskan island. Clinging to life after a savage bear attack, Cole wonders if he still has a chance at redemption.
In a groundbreaking work of nonfiction, Truman Capote investigates the brutal murder of a small-town Kansas family and the trial of the killers.
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