Crossword clues for messuage
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Messuage \Mes"suage\ (?; 48), n. [Cf. OF. mesuage, masnage, LL.
messuagium, mansionaticum, fr. L. mansio, -onis, a staying,
remaining, dwelling, fr. manere, mansum, to stay, remain, E.
mansion, manse.] (Law)
A dwelling house, with the adjacent buildings and curtilage,
and the adjoining lands appropriated to the use of the
household.
--Cowell. Bouvier.
They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,
To lands in Kent, and messuages in York.
--Tennyson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
legal term for "dwelling," late 14c., (late 13c. in Anglo-Latin), from Anglo-French messuage, which probably is a clerical error for mesnage (see menage). Originally the portion of land set aside for a dwelling-house and outbuildings, whether occupied by them or not; later chiefly in reference to the house and buildings and the attached land.
Wiktionary
n. (context chiefly legal English) A plot of land as the site for a house; later, a residential building taken together with its outbuildings and assigned land.
WordNet
n. (law) a dwelling house and its adjacent buildings and the adjacent land used by the household
Usage examples of "messuage".
Namely that I hereby create an Entail upon all the lands and hereditaments, tenements, messuages, and holdings: which Entail is vested in my Son, James, and the Heirs of his Body.
That all the copyholds and customary messuages, lands, and tenements within the said manor are, and have been time out of mind, copyholds of inheritance, demised and demisable to the copyholders or customary tenants thereof, and their heirs in fee simple by copy of Court Roll, according to the custom of the said manor.
That any customary tenant of the said manor seized of any estate of inheritance, in any customary tenement within the said manor, may cut timber, or any other trees standing or growing in or upon his said customary tenement, for repairs of his ancient customary messuages, with their appurtenances, and for estovers and other necessary things to be used upon such his customary tenement, without the licence or assignment of the lord of the said manor, but not for building new messuages for habitation.
He had been clerk to Brother Matthew, the cellarer, for four years, during which time fresh grants to the abbey had been flooding in richly, a new mill on the Tern, pastures, assarts, messuages in the town, glebes in the countryside, a fishery up-river, even a church or two, and there was no one who could match him at putting a finger on the slippery tenant or the field-lawyer, or the householder who had always three good stories to account for his inability to pay.
That all the copyholds and customary messuages, lands, and tenements within the said manor are, and have been time out of mind, copyholds of inheritance, demised and demisable to the copyholders or customary tenants thereof, and their heirs in fee simple by copy of Court Roll, according to the custom of the said manor.
Foregate, between the abbey forge and the messuage of Thomas the farrier, together with the garden and field pertaining to it, for an annual rent, during my lifetime, of one rose from the white rosebush growing beside the north wall, to be delivered to me, Judith, upon the day of the translation of Saint Winifred.