messuage
Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A dwelling-house with the adjacent buildings and curtilage, including garden and orchard, appropriated to the use of the household; a manor-house and its appendages.
This word comes from the Latin 'messuagium,' which is probably a derivative of ‘mansus,’ dwelling house; amount of land sufficient for a family.
Examples
“The family continued to inhabit this new messuage until about fifty years before the commencement of our history, when it was much damaged by a casual fire.”
“It is appended to a deed (preserved in the Public Record Office) dated in the ninth year of Edward the Third, whereby Walter de Grendene, clerk, sold to Margaret, his mother, one messuage, a barn and four acres of ground in the parish of Kingston-on-Thames.”
“Continuing along the road as we studied the home, we were led around to the landward front and into the midst of the ancient messuage.”
Virginia: the Old Dominion, by Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
