easement

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act of easing or the condition of being eased.
2. n. Something that affords ease or comfort.
3. n. Law A right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another's real property.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. That which gives ease, relief, or assistance; convenience; accommodation.
2. n. In law, a right of accommodation in another's land; such a right in respect to lands—as that of passage, or of having free access of light and air—which does not involve taking anything from the land; more specifically, such a right when held in respect to one piece of land by the owner of a neighboring piece by virtue of his ownership of the latter. In reference to this latter piece, the right is termed an easement; in reference to the former it is termed a servitude: but by some writers these terms are used indiscriminately. Easement, as distinguished from license, implies an interest in the servient tenement itself.
3. n. In carpentry, same as ease-off.

Wiktionary

1. n. Legal right to use another person's property
2. n. Relief, easing.
3. n. Shed, a small outbuilding.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. That which gives ease, relief, or assistance; convenience; accommodation.
2. n. A liberty, privilege, or advantage, which one proprietor has in the estate of another proprietor, distinct from the ownership of the soil, as a way, water course, etc. It is a species of what the civil law calls servitude.
3. n. A curved member instead of an abrupt change of direction, as in a baseboard, hand rail, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of reducing something unpleasant (as pain or annoyance)
2. n. (law) the privilege of using something that is not your own (as using another's land as a right of way to your own land)