Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

COMMONTY, n. Sc. usages. [′kɔməntɪ̢]

†1. A common possession.Sc. 1765 Invercauld Rec. (S.C.) 34: 
The ground thereof being in terms of the agreement we are now come to, to remain in commonty and common pasturage betwixt your tennants of Balnoe and my tenants of Toldow and Tombreck.Sc. 1814 Scott in J. G. Lockhart Life of Scott (1837) III. iv.:
Districts of ground are in many instances understood to belong to Townships or Communities, possessing what may be arable by patches, and what is muir as a commonty, pro indiviso.Sc. 1952 A. R. B. Haldane Drove Roads 211: 
Between 1750 and 1890 the number of Processes of Division of Commonty before the Court of Session alone, is over 450.

†2. Commonage, the right of pasturing.Sc. 1764 Nairne Peerage Evidence (1873) 94:
Together with the commonty and common pasturage in the muir of Blair.Sc. 1819 Scott Bride of Lamm. xii.:
Their huts, kail-yards, and rights of commonty.

‡3. A common (Abd.¹⁹, Ags.¹, Lnk.³ 1937).Freq. as a place-name.Sc. 1725 W. Macfarlane Geog. Coll. (S.H.S.) I. 426: 
A feild two miles west of Ellone called the commonty of Ardlethen.Sh. 1740 Rev. J. Mill Diary (S.H.S. 1889) 149:
That the Commonty adjoining the dykes of Skelberry . . . be divided equally.Ags. 1888 J. M. Barrie Auld Licht Idylls iii.:
Follow me to the commonty, all you persons who want to hear the Word of God properly preached.e.Lth. 1794 G. Buchan-Hepburn Gen. View Agric. e. Lth. 50:
Almost all these commons . . . have been divided . . . under the authority of our statute 1696, which fixed certain rules for dividing commonties.Slk. 1824 Hogg Confessions Justified Sinner 274:
The five pound land of Easter Knockward, with all the . . . muirs, meadows, commonties.