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”
derived from the concept of a ‘hypothetical’ security; it could be said to be an understood security, right or claim which a creditor might have over something belonging to his debtor (or potential debtor). For example, a landlord could be said to have a hypothec over the crops grown by his tenants in any particular year, for the rents due for that year.