escheat
To put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.
Noun
- 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.
- The property so reverted.
- Plunder, booty.
- 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. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto...
- That which falls to one; a reversion or return.
- And by my ruines thinkes to make them great: / To make one great by others losse, is bad excheat - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie,...
Origin
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.
Forms
Verb
- To put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.
- 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. - 1956 July, Col. H. C. B....
- Failure to perform duties opened the culprit to charges of ‘felony’ (felonia), providing grounds for the king to escheat the fief. - 2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 329:
- 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.