escheat

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English

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English eschete, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Lua error in Module:parameters at line 159: Parameter 1 should be a valid language code; the value xno is not valid. See WT:LOL. escheat, (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (that which falls to one), from the past participle of escheoir (to fall), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Lua error in Module:parameters at line 159: Parameter 1 should be a valid language code; the value VL. is not valid. See WT:LOL. *excadō, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin ex + cadō (I fall).

Pronunciation

Noun

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Wikipedia

escheat (countable and uncountable, plural escheats)

  1. (law) The return of property of a deceased person to the state (originally to a feudal lord) where there are no legal heirs or claimants.
  2. (law) The property so reverted.
  3. (obsolete) Plunder, booty.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.viii:
      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.
    • Spenser
      To make me great by others' loss is bad escheat.

Quotations

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.
    • 2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin 2017, p. 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 to a state or lord because its previous owner died without an heir.

Derived terms

Anagrams