approvement

Etymology

approve + -ment

noun

1. (obsolete, Old English law) Improvement of common lands by converting them for advantage of the landlord.
2. (archaic) Approval; approbation.
3. (UK, law, obsolete) A confession of guilt by a prisoner charged with treason or felony, together with an accusation of his accomplices and a giving evidence against them in order to obtain his own pardon.
   The whole learning of approvements (i. e. trial by the evidence of an approver) is now obsolete being superseded by the modern practice of allowing an accused person to turn evidence for the Queen without confessing the indictment. 1861, John Henry Willan, A Manual of the Criminal Law of Canada, page 7