Attaint

In old English law

A writ which lay to inquire whether a jury had given a false verdict, in order that the judgment might be reversed. The inquiry was made by a grand assise or jury of twentyfour, and if they found the verdict false, the judgment was that the jurors should become infamous, forfeit their goods and the profits of their lands, and be imprisoned, that their wives and children should be thrust out of doors, that their houses should be razed, their trees extirpated, and their meadows ploughed up, and that the plaintiff should be restored to all that he lost by the verdict