abettor (formerly abetter)

[ABET.] One who encourages another in anything, originally in a good as well as a bad sense. Pope employs it in the former. Now it has usually a bad sense. Law: One who encourages, instigates, or sets on another to the commi ion of some criminal act; an acce ory to a crime. An abettor who is present at the time of committing a crime is considered as a principal in the second degree. One absent, but still cognisant of what is to take place, is called an acce ory before the fact. In Scotch law, an abettor is said to be act and part in a crime. (Black stone: Comm . , iv. 3.) [ABET, ACCESSORY.] "But let the abetters of the Panther's crime." Dryden: Hind and Panther, 3. "But the Hesiodic demons are in no way authors or abettors of evil."-Grote: Greece, vol. i, chap. ii.