Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
PRAECIPUUM, n. Sc. Law: “a right which, being by its nature indivisible (as the right to a peerage or a mansion-house) goes to the eldest [daughter] and not to all heirs-portioners jointly” (Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 66). [pri′sɪpjuʌm]Sc. 1707 Morison Decisions 5362:
The house and yards should belong to her as a praecipuum, and a distinct indivisible right.Lnk. 1739 W. Hunter Biggar (1862) 184:
The Earl claimed not only a proportion of the Muir, according to the valuation of his adjacent property lands, but also a praecipuum of a fourth.Sc. 1773 Erskine Institute iii. viii. § 13:
Praecipuum to the eldest of the mansion-house and garden. The principal mansion-house of the lands is accounted an indivisible right; but because that subject admitted of valuation, our old law directed that the younger sisters should be recompensed out of the deceased's other estate to the amount of its value.Sc. 1807 Morison Decisions App. 4:
Elizabeth, the elder sister, claimed as a praecipuum the mansion-house and garden, and likewise heirship moveables, including a valuable Gaelic manuscript, which had long been in the family.Sc. 1857 Session Cases (1856–7) 763:
To be allotted as such to the elder sister, as a praecipuum appertaining by right of primogeniture.Sc. 1916 Session Cases 428–9:
The just ambit of the praecipuum conferred upon the eldest of a family of heirs-portioners according to the law of Scotland . . . The principle which lies at the root of the praecipuum is indivisibility.
