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

Jo Ju

Joi Jou

jointure

a provision for a widow, usually made in her marriage contract and consisting of an annual payment to be made to her in her lifetime; if such a jointure was appointed for a wife, it would unless otherwise provided for deprive her of her widow’s terce, but she was better off with the jointure, since if her husband died in debt or bankrupt, she would be reckoned as one of his creditors and be able to make her claim first rather than waiting till the debts were settled and having to make do with a share of what was left.