The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) 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. Since the SCAN project ended, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has gone online at http://www.dsl.ac.uk/, and this should be consulted for Scots words and phrases (including legal terms).
a letter under the signet to do with diligence;
this one empowered a messenger at arms to break
open the doors of any place which contained
a debtor's goods, so that they could be poinded
outed minister
a minister who had been ejected from his parish
outfield
the more outlying and less fertile part of a
farm, where the ground was seldom or never cultivated
(before the introduction of enclosure and crop
rotation in the 18th century)
outredding
usually applied to someone's "affairs";
it means "settling"
moveable property kept or lying out of doors;
it would include livestock and implements like
ploughs, but not corn or hay, which were not
reckoned as "plenishings"
oversman
an umpire who was appointed to settle some
matter which had gone to arbitration, but on
which the arbiters had been unable to decide
