ATTACHING, or ATTACHMENT, in law, the taking or apprehending a person or thing by commandment or writ. See COMMANDMENT and WRIT.
The word is formed of the French attacher, to fasten, tie; and that from the corrupt Latin attachiare, of attexere, to weave to; or rather from the Celtic tach, a nail, and tacha, to nail.
Lambard makes this difference between an arrest and an attachment; that an arrest proceeds out of an inferior court by precept, and an attachment out of a higher court, by precept or writ; and that a precept to arrest hath these formal words, duci facias, etc., and a writ of attachment these, praecipimus tibi quod attachies talem, et habeas eum coram nobis. See ARREST.
By this it appears, that he who arrests, carries the party arrested to another higher person, to be disposed of forthwith, whereas he that attaches keeps the party attached, and presents him in court at the day assigned in the attachment. There is this further difference, that an arrest lies only upon the body of a man; and an attachment sometimes on his goods too; for a man may be attached by an hundred sheep.—
