edict
A legally authoritative proclamation made in a public place; usually summoning persons to compear before a court; also used for publicly declaring the intention to ordain ministers and elders in presbyterian church courts.
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”
effeirs, as effeirs, effeiring
legal term, meaning relating or corresponding to.
Egyptians
historic term referring to Romani peoples in use from the sixteenth century. The term arose from the incorrect belief that Romani Gypsies had come from either Egypt or the Peloponnese peninsula known as “little Egypt”. The term “Egyptian” was the source of the later term “gypsy” sometimes used to describe Romani and Traveller groups.
More information on the origin of this term is available through Our Migration Story and The Traveller Movement.
eik
an addition or supplement to a deed.
ejection and intrusion
taking violent possession of lands or houses, expelling their lawful possessor, and illegally detaining them; the ‘heritable equivalent’ of spuilzie.
ell, elln
a measure of length; traditionally the distance between the elbow and the fingertips.
elnwand
Scots measure; a measuring rod one ell long.
emphyteusis
another term for holding land in return for a yearly payment of rent.
engrosser or regrater
someone who buys goods in a fair or market and then sells them again in the same or an adjoining market with the purpose of bumping up the price.
entail (or tailzie)
A deed by which the legal course of succession to lands could be altered and another one substituted, or by which the descent of the lands could be secured to a specified succession of heirs and substitutes. The Entail (Scotland) Act 1914 prevented the creation of new entails after that date.
entres, entresse
interest or concern in a property or in some matters; can also mean interest in a sum of money.
entry of an heir
acceptance of an heir to landed property by the feudal superior of the property.
eodem die
Latin phrase meaning ‘on the same day’. This expression is typically found in court records, indicating a further sitting of the court ‘on the same day’, often after concluding one case and starting a new one.
error, summons of
a legal action to get someone’s service as heir to a property annulled, on the grounds that an inquest had identified the wrong person as heir because a nearer heir existed.
escheat
the confiscation of property (of whatever type) by the Crown, generally as the consequence of a crime.
esow
Scots term meaning resolve; avoid
estover
‘common of estover’ (really an English term) is the technical name for the right of tenants, for example, to use dead wood for fuel.
evidents
a Scottish name for any deeds or other written evidence.
ex deliberatione dominorum concillii
Latin phrase meaning ‘by the deliberation of the Lords of Council’. Written on the bottom of all signet letters, in pursuance of the legal fiction that all these derive directly from the king and his council.
excambion
a contract whereby one piece of land was exchanged for another.