escheat

English

Etymology

From Middle English eschete, from Anglo-Norman escheat, Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), from the past participle of escheoir (“to fall”), from Vulgar Latin *excadēre, from Latin ex + cadere (“fall”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əsˈt͡ʃiːt/
• Rhymes: -iːt

Noun

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, “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

• 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.
   • 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 to a state or lord because its previous owner died without an heir.

Related terms

• escheatery
• escheator
• escheatment

Translations

Translations

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

Anagrams

• cheetas, eatches, ceaseth, teaches