Adjectives of evidential force in French

The eighth entry is circonstancié, and the English adjective standing beside it points the other way. « Circumstantial » now belongs above all to evidence, and there it means indirect: circumstantial evidence proves nothing on its own, it invites an inference, and a case resting on it is a case with a hole in the middle. Circonstancié carries no such doubt. It says that an account came with all its circumstances in place — time, place, order, names, the detail only somebody who was there would supply. Un récit circonstancié, un rapport circonstancié, un avis circonstancié: each names a document praised for leaving nothing out, and in administrative French the word is a requirement rather than a warning. « Circumstantial » did once carry that sense too, in « a circumstantial account », but the courtroom has taken the word over almost entirely. So the two rate the same page in opposite directions. What English calls circumstantial evidence is une preuve indirecte or un faisceau d’indices; and what French calls circonstancié must be said with « detailed », « full » or « particularised ».