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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

VIOLENT, adj., v. Also veelant (Ork. 1904 W. T. Dennison Sketches 3). Sc. usages:

I. adj. Sc. Law phr. violent profits, the assessed profits or income from a piece of property exacted as a penalty from a tenant who refuses to vacate after his lease has been terminated by the proprietor, “penal damages due by an intruder without colour of law” (Sc. 1970 D. M. Walker Principles 1132).Sc. 1722 W. Forbes Institutes I. ii. 157:
The Lords decern him to remove, and to pay the Pursuer violent Profits of the Land from the Warning, till he give Obedience.Sc. 1753 Scots Mag. (June) 294:
It can be no more than violent profits, which is often modified in inferior courts.Sc. 1814 Scott Waverley lxvi.:
Even when ye hae gotten decreet of spuilzie, oppression, and violent profits against them.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 1028:
In rural tenements, the violent profits are held to be the full profits which the landlord could have made either by possessing the lands himself or by letting to others. In urban tenements, the violent profits are generally estimated at double the stipulated rent.Sc. 1884 Crofters' Comm. Evid. I. 125:
In the £35 there was a whole year's rent due. He was charged, besides, violent profits, being the legal penalty for remaining in possession after the term.Sc. 1933 Encycl. Law Scot. XV. 499:
Violent profits are so called because they are such profits as are due by and for the violent or illegal possession of property. They are penal damages instituted as a special deterrent against taking the law into one's own hands.

†II. v. To treat with violence, do violence to (a person or thing), use coercion on, ride roughshod over the wishes of (a person). Rare and obs. in Eng.; to force or compel (a person) into some action.Sc. 1713 Earls Crm. (Fraser 1876) II. 138:
The Publick Records of the nation were never violented nor expos'd to danger but by the two Englishmen, King Edward and Oliver Crummle.Sc. 1721 R. Wodrow Sufferings ii. xiii. s.2:
The Procedure of this Period, in violenting People into the Declaration, Bond, and Test.Sc. 1730 T. Boston Memoirs (1899) 225:
I would fain have caused draw the nail again, but because of one that was present I restrained and violented myself.Ayr. 1743 Ayr Presb. Reg. MS. (19 Jan.):
Had he been less tender of violenting the people, and doing what he reckoned not conformable to his principles.