Sc. Law. Also 5 lifrent, 6 lyf(e)rent, lyverent, 7 liffrent. A rent that one is entitled to receive for life, usually for support; a right to use and enjoy property during one’s life.
1491. Sc. Acts Jas. IV. (1814), II. 225/1. Landis gevin in coniunctfeftment or lifrent. Ibid. (1535), 344/2. Þe wardatouris of sik landis [marg. add. ladyis of coniunct fee or lyfrent].
1535. Q. Margaret, in St. Papers Hen. VIII. (1836), V. 22, note. Ye maist partie of oure landis and lyverent lyis apoune ye Bordouris of Ingland.
1591. Charter, in A. McKay, Hist. Kilmarnock (ed. 4), 359. We have given … to our beloved cousin, Thomas, Lord Boyd, in free-holding, or life-rent [etc.].
1754. Erskine, Princ. Sc. Law (1809), 510. If the person prosecuted for this crime shall be denounced for not appearing, his liferent … falls upon the denunciation.
1832. Austin, Jurispr. (1879), II. l. 858. Like the usufruct of the old jus civile, liferent is personal to the liferenter.
1837. Lockhart, Scott, 6 Feb. an. 1826. They would have had a right to his liferent at Abbotsford among other things.
b. attrib. and Comb., as liferent-infeftment, right, tack; liferent-escheat (see ESCHEAT 1 b).
1681. Sc. Act, in Lond. Gaz., No. 1649/3. They shall be … punished with the loss of their Moveables and *liferent Escheat.
1754. Erskine, Princ. Sc. Law (1809), 173. A *liferent-infeftment … or a liferent-tack, when assigned falls not under the assignee’s liferent-escheat, but his single.
1842. J. Aiton, Domest. Econ. (1857), 156. A minister had only a *liferent right to his glebe.
1637–50. Row, Hist. Kirk (1842), 218. That the licence granted to beneficed persons to sett tacks be restrained either to a *liferent tack, or to a nineteen yeare tack allanerlie.
Hence Life-rented a., charged with a liferent.
1720. Lond. Gaz., No. 5890/3. Part of Calder, not Life-rented.
