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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1956 (SND Vol. IV).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

HABIT(E) AND REPUTE, adj. phr. Sc. Law: an adaptation of med. Lat. phr. habitus et reputatus, held and reputed (to be so and so); also used substantivally = the fact of being held and reputed, reputation. “Habit and repute, in the law of theft, means the reputation of being a thief, the words being used in aggravation of the particular charge. In civil law it is the reputation of being married which, coupled with cohabitation, constitutes an irregular marriage” (Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 39).Bnff. 1700 in S.C. Misc. (1846) III. 181:
Being knowne habit and reput to be Egiptians and wagabonds, and keeping the mercats in their ordinarie manner of theiving and purse-cutting.Sc. 1712 Letter in Atholl MSS. (22 Dec.):
I must make affidavit that the parochines of Mulin and Dull are habit and repute to lye within the Earledome of Atholl.Sc. 1732 Session Papers, Stuart v. Barbour (2 Dec.) 16:
Such Co-habitation, which must carry the Notoriety of Habite and Repute along with it, cannot be by one single Act, but must be inferred from a Course of Time, and, as said is, from a publick open Living together.Sc. 1774 Weekly Mag. (16 June) 382:
Witnesses were also examined with regard to the habite and repute of the claimant's descent from lord Borthwick.Sc. 1788 Dmf. Weekly Jnl. (5 Aug.):
James Liddell, watchmaker in Camlachie, was brought before the Sheriff-substitute of Lanarkshire, charged with stealing bee-hives, and of being habit and repute a stealer of bee-hives.wm.Sc. 1836 Sc. Annual 175:
He had returned to let the remnant o' his candle burn oot in his native place, wi' the habit and repute o' having a mint o' wealth.Ayr. 1901 “G. Douglas” Green Shutters xx.:
[He] was a habit-and-repute tippler.Arg. 1901 N. Munro Doom Castle iv.:
A few of them from clans apparently friendly to us when in other quarters, but traitors and renegades at the heart; some are spies habit and repute.Sc. 1904 A. M. Anderson Crim. Law Scot. 94:
Declaration de presenti before a magistrate, or . . . marriage by habit and repute, similarly declared, may all be founded on.Sc. 1953 Scotsman (22 July):
Lord Blades, in giving judgment, said proof of cohabitation with habit and repute was still a recognised mode of establishing an irregular marriage in Scotland.