Settling a dispute out of court

The sixth entry is l’exécution de la sentence, and the noun that opens it is a false friend with a trap at either end. In English legal usage « the execution of a contract » is the signing of it: the parties execute a deed, an « executed copy » is the one carrying the signatures, and nothing at all has yet been done about the promises inside. French names the opposite moment. L’exécution d’un contrat is the carrying out of the obligations, exécuter ses engagements is to honour them, and l’inexécution, twenty entries further down this list, is the failure to perform. For the signing, French says la signature or la conclusion. The second trap waits at the far end of the case. Once an arbitrator has ruled and the loser will not pay, English stops saying « execution » altogether and says « enforcement »: an award is enforced, and only the paper that sets a bailiff moving keeps the older word, in « a writ of execution ». So read l’exécution twice, and render it as performance or as enforcement, never as signature.