escheat

English

Etymology

From Middle English escheat, achete, eschete (“the reversion or conversion of property to the government”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- +‎ cadere (“fall”). Doublet of cheat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪsˈt͡ʃiːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

Noun

escheat (countable and uncountable, plural escheats)

1. (law) The return, conversion, or vesting of property of a deceased person or closed business to the government (originally to a feudal lord) where there are no legal heirs or claimants. It is known as bona vacantia in the United Kingdom.
2. (law) The property so reverted.
3. (obsolete) Plunder, booty.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Approching, with bold words and bitter threat, / Bad that same boaster, as he mote, on high / To leaue to him that Lady for excheat, / Or bide him battell without further treat.

4. That which falls to one; a reversion or return.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 25:

     And by my ruines thinkes to make them great: / To make one great by others losse, is bad excheat

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:escheat.

Translations

Translations

• French: déshérence (fr) f
• Middle English: eschete
• Polish: kaduk (pl) m

Verb

escheat (third-person singular simple present escheats, present participle escheating, simple past and past participle escheated)

1. (transitive) To put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.
   • 1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 477:

     Arms are very rigidly controlled in Scotland by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. […] Under an Act of 1592, Lyon King of Arms can escheat to the Sovereign all goods unlawfully displaying arms.

   • 2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 329:

     Failure to perform duties opened the culprit to charges of ‘felony’ (felonia), providing grounds for the king to escheat the fief.

2. (intransitive) To revert, convert, or vest ownership to the government or lord because its previous owner died without an heir or a business closed and no one claims the assets.

Related terms

• escheatery
• escheator
• escheatment

Translations

Translations

• Hungarian: háramlási jog sg
• Latin: fiscalitas
• Middle English: escheten

Derived terms

• cheater
• escheatable
• escheatage
• unescheated

See also

• bona vacantia

Anagrams

• cheetas, eatches, ceaseth, teaches