Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

DATIVE, adj. Sc. law: appointed by a magistrate or court, instead of by a testator; used in n. combs., the adj. always being suffixed to the n.: 1. decree dative, “the technical name given to the decree of the commissaries conferring on an executor (not being an executor-nominate) the office of executor” (Sc. 1890 Bell Dict. Law Scot. 294); 2. executor-dative, the executor appointed by the decree dative; 3. tutor-dative, a tutor appointed by the court on the failure of tutors-nominate or tutors-at-law.1. Sc. 1754 J. Erskine Princ. Law Scot. 401:
All these must be decerned executors by a sentence called a decree dative.2. Sc. 1890 Bell Dict. Law Scot. 431:
The office of executor is conferred either by the written nomination of the defunct, or, failing that, by decree of the commissary; the executor, in the former case, being called an executor-nominate, and, in the latter, an executor-dative.

3.Ib. 1098–1099:
The tutor is either a tutor-nominate, or a tutor-at-law, or a tutor-dative. . . . A tutordative is named by the sovereign as pater patriae, on the failure both of tutors-nominate and of tutors-at-law.