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

Da De Di Do Dr Dy

dale, deal

Scots term meaning plank; shelf; container, originally made of wood, usually for milk.

davach, davoch, daugh

Scots measure of land, amounting to about four ploughgates.

de facto

Latin term meaning ‘in fact’, or it can be applied to indicate something which has been actually done.

deaccession

the process of permanently removing accessioned items.

dead’s part, deid’s part

the part of someone’s moveable estate which they are entitled to dispose of by testament after death; see bairn’s part and jus relictae, which are the other parts.

dean of guild

the head of the guildry in a royal burgh, later also a magistrate in a police burgh (including royal burghs) with responsibility for building control until local government re-organisation in 1975 (see Knowledge Base for more details)

debitum fundi

Latin phrase meaning a ‘debt of the land’; indicates a debt secured over the land and arising directly out of it, e.g. arrears of feu-duty.

Decessit sine pole (DSP)

Latin phrase meaning ‘dies without issue’; indicates a person who died without having children, and is used in older family trees.

declarator

a form of action to have some right or interest declared by law.

decree of locality

a decree of the Teind Court, allocating what particular proportions of such a modified stipend would be paid by each of the parish heritors.

decree of modification

a decree of the Teind Court, modifying a clergyman’s stipend.

decree of valuation

a decree of the Teind Court, determining the extent and value of a heritor’s teinds.

decree or decreet

the final judgement or sentence of a court.

decreet arbitral

the award of arbiters on a point or points at issue jointly submitted to them by the parties in the dispute.

deed

in the most usual Scottish sense, a formal written document in a set form which gives the terms of an agreement, contract or obligation; normally authenticated by the author’s signature, signatures of witnesses and a testing clause; for practical purposes, any document which isn’t a sasine or concerned with the transfer of heritable property.