Law. [f. SUR- + REJOINDER.] In old common-law pleading, a plaintiff’s reply to the defendant’s rejoinder. Also transf. an answer to a rejoinder or reply (in general).
The order of the pleadings is: plaintiff’s declaration, defendant’s plea, plaintiff’s replication, defendant’s rejoinder, plaintiff’s surrejoinder, defendant’s rebutter, plaintiff’s surrebutter.
1542–3. Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII., c. 27 § 50. The Prenotarye to have for the … replicacion, rejoyndre, surrejoyndre, for everye of them if they be enrolled … xijd.
1644. Prynne & Walker, Fiennes’s Trial, 47. The whole three dayes first defence being made intirely together, and then the Reply, Rejoinder, and Surrejoinder thereunto.
1682. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 236. The atturney generall hath pleaded in surrejoinder to the citty of Londons rejoinder to the quo warranto against their charter.
1770. [see SURREBUTTER].
1886. W. E. Norris, My Friend Jim, I. 70. To make such a rejoinder as that would only have been to expose myself to a surrejoinder which it would have been altogether futile to attempt to rebut.
1903. Morley, Gladstone, II. V. iii. 49. Mr. Gladstone, for his part, was too much in earnest to forego rejoinder and even surrejoinder.
