Your Scottish Archives Glossary

The Your Scottish Archives Glossary defines archaic words and phrases, mostly Scots law terminology, commonly found in documents and records in Scotland’s archives. If you think a word or phrase should be added to the glossary, or an existing entry could be defined better, please contact us at your@scottisharchives.org.uk.

You can also use the Dictionary of the Scots Language as a further resource at https://dsl.ac.uk/ for Scots words and phrases (including legal terminology).

To find a term within the glossary, click on the initial letter of the word you are looking for, then select the relevant syllable segment displayed below.

Example: to find the term “roup” select section “R” then sub-section “Ro”

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y

Ba Be Bi Bl Bo Br Bu

Boa Bol Bon Boo Bou

boat

Scots term meaning cask; butt; barrel; tub

boll

dry measure of weight or capacity which varied according to the commodity and locality, e.g. a boll of meal weighed 140lbs, approximately 63.5kg; valuation of land according to the quantity of bolls it produced; payment in food to a farm labourer.

bond

in general, a written obligation to pay or perform something; a bond of corroboration is an additional confirmation by a debtor of his original debt (for example to the ancestor of the obligor); a bond of caution is an obligation by one person to act as security or surety for another; a bond of relief is an undertaking to relieve such a cautioner from his obligation; a bond of disposition in security was the commonest form of heritable security in the 19th century, combining a personal bond by the borrower with a disposition of the lands on which the sum was secured. Most unusual was the bond of manrent, an obligation by a free person to become the follower of someone who could protect him, who would in turn, undertake to support and maintain him.