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

Sa Sc Se Sh Si Sl So Sp St Su Sy

Sea Sed Sem Seq Ser

seals

a mark or image, often including a portrait or coat of arms, applied to documents by stamping a seal tool, or ‘die’, often into wax. Applying a seal in this way could act as a type of signature, showing who had made or agreed to the sealed record; the seal could also fulfil the physical task of closing shut a document until it was opened by the recipient. Seals could be applied on the document, or hanging from the document on a strip of paper or parchment, or on a card. See also signet letters, the Great Seal and Privy Seal.

search room

a secure, supervised space designed to enable users to access archival items while protecting the items from loss or damage. This should normally comply with the PSQG Standard for Access to Archives. (https://www.archives.org.uk/images/documents/access_standard_2008.pdf accessed 22 Oct 2021)