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”
the parts and pertinents are what a piece of land was always granted with; they implied everything connected with the land granted whether named or not, including adjuncts, accessories and privileges. These could be considerable.
the study and analysis of handwriting; also used to refer to the skill of reading older handwriting.
teinds of corn and other crops belonging to a parson, sometimes called decimae rectorae (rectorage teinds) or decimae garbales (teind sheaves); see teinds.
a measure of land of about one quarter of an acre, sometimes called a ‘parcel’.
the common right of tenants to pasture cattle, particularly on someone else’s land.
specifically, the right of presenting a clergyman to church.
a Scots measure of dry capacity. A quarter of the firlot was a peck (possibly from the word ‘pack’ or else from the French picotin, meaning a ‘peck’, or the Latin picotus, a liquid measure). See Dry Capacity for details.
a small piece of ground, usually attached to a building or separated from the rest of a property in some way.
more often used than the alternative name, Whitsun or Whitsunday – the seventh Sunday after Easter, but fixed in 1693 for term purposes as 15 May; it was one of the two terms of the year on which rents fell due and when contracts, leases and tacks began and ended. The other term was Martinmas.
the equivalent of excambion in heritable property; this is the exchange of one piece of moveable property for another (therefore a posh word for barter)
records created or generated by an individual or family in the course of their private lives, such as correspondence, certificates, diaries or other personal material.
someone who brings an action before a court, i.e. petitions the court.
main Scots unit of liquid capacity. The term was originally from the Latin, pingo, pinctum meaning ‘to paint’; see also joug. For further details, see Liquid Capacity.
in general, furniture and other household moveable goods; ‘outsight plenishings‘ were those kept out of doors.
a measure of land which contained 8 oxgangs each of 12-13 acres, but the size varied from place to place.
a diligence (enforced by letter under the signet called ‘letters of poinding’) whereby ownership of a debtor’s moveable property is transferred to his creditor. ‘Real poinding’ or ‘poinding of the ground’ is the poinding of goods lying on lands which are a security for the debt; ‘personal poinding’ is the poinding of moveable property which is then sold at auction (or ‘made penny of’ in the usual phrase) the proceeds of which are used to pay the debt. If there is more than one creditor, there may be an action of multiple poinding raised by the debtor. Pronounced ‘pinding’.
a proprietor who held only a small piece of land; heirs portioners were women who succeeded jointly to property.
after marriage.
basic unit of Scots weight (from the Latin pondo, ‘by weight’, or pondus, meaning a ‘weight on a scale’), which equated roughly with the Roman weight, libra, hence the abbreviation of ‘lb.’ See also Weights.
a piece of land which would have been originally valued at one pound in the extent; generally taken as 4 oxgangs or half a ploughgate.