I posted about this word a couple months ago, but doubt that anybody remembers it. The definition in my dictionary makes it exclusively a legal term. I'm not sure what meaning was intended in Brander Matthews 1907 discussion of the short story as an art form:
" Brief tales of another kind were known to the ancients, Oriental in their origin, for the most part, and abounding in that liking for the supernatural, which characterizes the majority of the stories that have come to us from the East. There are the rambling Egyptian narratives,—the tale, for example, of the “Two Brothers” and the “Story of the Shipwrecked Sailors,” which scholars have only recently replevined from the buried papyrus. "

replevin
n.
5ME < Anglo-Fr replevine < OFr replevir, to warrant, pledge < re3, again + plevir, to pledge < ML plevium, warranty, PLEDGE6 Law
1 the recovery of goods by the person claiming to own them, on a promise to test the matter in court and give the goods up again if defeated
2 the writ by which one takes over the goods
vt.
REPLEVY