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 legal action or warrant to compel a defaulting party to an obligation to pay or perform what he had undertaken in the obligation; or a warrant to recover writings from an opponent or evidence from witnesses. It can be in various forms, depending on whether action is taken against the defaulter’s moveable or heritable property. Horning and poinding are the usual ones applied to moveable property, inhibition to heritable subjects.