Black's Law Dictionary, With Pronunciations
5th Edition
West Publishing Co.
HEADRIGHT: The right (or a certificate confirming the right) of an individual to certain acreage specified by a colony or province: usually made as a reward for immigration to and settlement within that colony. Such a headright might be assigned to a second person who paid importation costs or be sold or assigned to another by the one eligible for the headright.
METES AND BOUNDS: A system of measuring land in which metes represent the compass points and directions that define the shape of the land and bounds represent the landmarks or adjacent tracts.
PEPPERCORN: A dried berry of the black pepper plant. In England law, the reservation of a merely nominal rent, on a lease, was sometimes expressed by a stipulation for the payment of a peppercorn.
DOWRY: The property that a woman brings to her husband in marriage, also called a marriage portion.
DEED(warranty): A deed in which the grantor (guarantees) warrants good and clear title.
ENTAILMENT: A limitation by which bequeathed property is to descend in some specified manner different from that normally set by law.
LEASE: Contract for possession and profits of lands and tenements either for life, or for certain periods of time, or during the pleasure of the parties.
LEASE AND RELEASE: A legal contrivance popularly used in England and some colonies to circumvent certain laws of the Crown. Under this type of conveyance, two documents were executed; together they constituted a virtual deed of sale. On day 1 the lessor/grantor of the property executed a lease to the lessee/grantee, transferring usage of the property in return for payment of a peppercorn (or 5 shillings, or other token). On day 2 (often the next day) the lessor/grantor executed a release of his right of reversion-i.e. the right to recover the property at the end of the lease- in exchange for a specified sum that represented more accurately the value of the property transferred by the two documents.
MORTGAGE: A conditional conveyance of legal title to property. To secure the payment of certain money or the performance of certain actions, the property owner grants title to some other person (often a third party called a trustee) to hold the title until the conditions are met or until a specified date. In early America, the holder of the mortgage frequently assumed possession of the mortgaged property; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, no actual transfer of property usually took place unless conditions were not met on time.
MORTGAGE RELEASE: A document executed by the holder of a mortgage at the time a mortgage is cleared.
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