Scots Phrases

Below is a list of Scots words and phrases that you may come across in deeds and legal writings.

Scots term	Translation
Bere	Barley
Boll	A measure of weight and capacity, varying slightly according to the type of grain measured and to the county or district. The standard wheat boll (Linlithgow) was equal to three bushels three pecks. The barley boll (Linlithgow) was equal to five bushels three pecks. A boll was four firlots or 1/16 of a chalder. A boll of oatmeal weight one cwt. two stones.
Booking	A form of land-tenure peculiar to the Burgh of Paisley. Conveyances of land under this tenure, in place of an obligation to infeft, contained an obligation "to book and secure".
Bovate	The amount of land which it was calculated one of a team of eight oxen could plough in a year, i.e. 1/8 of a ploughgate. Latinised form of oxgate.
Cain	(Gaelic cain-customers or rents paid in kind). Generally applied to fowls, eggs or animals paid to a landlord in lieu of rent. (see - reek hen).
Chalder	A measure of weight and capacity, varying slightly according to the type of grain measured and to the county or district.
Commonty	A right to the perpetual use in common with others of a piece of land generally for pasturage; such land itself, a common.
Cruive	A salmon-trap consisting of an enclosure or fence in a river so constructed as to catch only fully-grown fish which once inside the enclosure cannot get out again. Cruives must be kept open on Sundays.
Currucate	See Ploughgate
Davach	A measure of land particularly associated with North-East Scotland and described as equal to four ploughgates (calculated as 416 Scots acres), but probably more correctly an indefinite area of land including rough grazing as well as arable ground varying in extent according to fertility.
Extent, auld and new	The name historically given to the general valuation of land in Scotland for the purposes of taxation, casualty assessment and franchise. The auld extent was made in the reign of Alexander III (c.1280); the new, as a result of the improvement of land and altered money values, in 1474. Both valuations appear in the retours after 1474 and later valuations were generally calculated in multiples of auld extent. The practice fell into disuse being replaced by the valued rent, an assessment of 1643, and later by the modern valuation roll of 1854. In its reduced form of stent, the word came to mean a task. Hence stentmaster etc.
Farthingland	See Pennyland
Feal and divot	A servitude right to cut turf for building, thatching or fuel. Both words mean sods, fails being thicker than divots.
Fiar	From the Old French feor, feur - fixed price. The average prices of the various types of grain fixed annually in February for the current year by the Sheriff in the Friars Court. Originally fixed to ascertain the money value of Crown rents, later to settle value of grain sued for at law and, since 1808, only to determine the amount of a parish minister’s stipend. To fix these amounts is technically called "to strike fiars" and the procedure is regulated by Acts of Sederunt of 1723.
Gowpen	A double handful. Lock - a single handful. Two of the perquisites in grain or mel of the mill-servants, payable by those in the sucken of a mill.
Haining	An enclosure fenced off originally by a hedge, generally for the purpose of protecting a hay crop from cattle.
Infield	In the old agricultural system before rotational farming, the two main divisions into which a farm was divided. The infield was the best land nearest the farmstead, which was continuously in crop and received the winter dung. The outfield or second-best land was cropped and pastured alternately in five-year periods.
Knaveship	A small proportion of the grain ground at a mill given to the servant who does the actual grinding; one of the sequels of thirlage.
Maill	Strictly, rental paid in money. Sometimes called silver-maill. Grass-maill was the rent payable for grazing cattle on some other’s pasture.
Mart	An ox or cow fattened for slaughter about the end of the November and salted for winter provisions.
Merk	A merk is an old Scots coin equal to 13/4 Scots. A merkland is land valued in auld extent at that sum. A ploughgate being a forty-shilling land of auld extent and being calculated at about 104 aces, a merkland would be on an average 34 acres, the exact size however depending rather on its productive capacity than on its superficial area.
Multure	The duty, consisting of a proportion of the grain, exacted by the proprietor or tenant of a mill on all corn ground. Insucken multure was that exigible from farmers within the sucken of the mill and was heavier than outsucken multure, levied on those outside the sucken who came voluntarily to the mill. Dry multures are duties, in grain or money, paid by suckeners whether grain is ground or not.
Ox gang	See Oxgate.
Oxgate	Otherwise, "oxgang". The amount of land which it was calculated one of a team of eight oxen could plough in a year, i.e. 1/8 of a ploughgate. Latinised also as bovate.
Parsonage	The teinds of a parish paid for the maintenance of the resident clergyman. In parishes in the endowment of a monastery or cathedral, parsonage teinds were of corn only and went to the endowed body, vicarage teinds (the lesser teinds) being the perquisite of the vicar or priest in charge. In other parishes, both teinds went to the resident.
Pennyland	A land originally valued at a penny of auld extent. There were similarly shillinglands and farthinglands. These valuation divisions of land persisted in the North and West of Scotland much later than elsewhere.
Ploughgate	The amount of land which a plough pulled by a team of eight oxen could till in a year, generally calculated at 104 Scots acres but varying probably according to the productive capacity of the land rather than its extent. (This definition is questioned by some authorities). Also called carrucate, or, in England hide. The proprietor of a ploughgate, held of the Crown, had a parliamentary vote. In money terms a ploughgate was a forty-shilling land of auld extent.
Reek hen	A hen paid as part of the rental for each house which reeked, i.e. a dwelling-house with a fireplace.
Runrig	Originally land, alternate rigs of which belonged to different proprietors. After 1695 such land was re-apportioned more conveniently into divisions, larger than rigs, of several acres each. The term is used more loosely to describe small divisions of land adjacent to one another which farmers took it in turn to work and crop. A rig (ridge) is a piece of land ploughed about a central furrow, varying in size but now measuring about 15-18 feet wide.
Shillingland	See Pennyland.
Soccage	An ancient tenure of land by which the vassal rendered only agricultural services to the feudal superior.
Soum (or Sowm)	A soum of land is the amount which will pasture one cow or ten sheep per season. An action of souming and rouming is one designed to ascertain how many cattle a grazier with grazing rights in a common might pasture thereon. To roum (i.e. make room) is, literally, to allot space to each grazier.
Sucken	The lands of an estate on which there was an obligation to grind corn at a certain mill. Proprietors or tenants of such lands were called suckeners (see also Thirlage). The chief dues for such grindings were called multures and the lesser duties sequels.
Thirlage	The servitude or obligation on occupiers of certain lands to take their grain to a particular mill to be ground for payment of certain duties (in kind) specified in the conveyance. See Multure, Sequels, Sucken.
Thrave	A measure of cut corn equal to two stooks, i.e. 24 sheaves.
Vicarage	The lesser teinds (of hay, garden stuff, young animals and other farm produce except corn) reserved for the vicar or resident priest of a parish, which was in the endowment of a cathedral or monastery. See also Parsonage. Though assessed, these teinds were seldom actually exacted, the vicar being paid his salary directly from the bishop or abbot.
Ware	Sea-weed. Formerly this might be feued to any feudal vassal but, if not, it was common property.