borough English

English

Etymology

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Noun

borough English (uncountable)

  1. (UK law, historical) Patrilineal ultimogeniture; inheritance by the youngest surviving male child.
    Synonym: junior right
    • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:
      the great variety of customs affecting many of these tenements so held in ancient burgage, the principal and most remarkable of which is that called Borough English
    • 1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 434:
      The distribution of Borough English or ultimogeniture in England was roughly as follows. The custom extenhded along the whole line of the "Saxon Shore" from the Wash to the neighbourhood of the Solent, including the whole of the south-eastern counties.
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