Definition
In historical English law, *got* (also spelled *goat* or *gote*) is an archaic Anglo-Norman French term for a sluice, drain, or ditch — an artificial channel used to direct or carry away water. The term appears in early property and water-rights disputes concerning drainage infrastructure on land and was used in conveyancing and pleading records to describe such features as physical boundaries or encumbrances.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An auxiliary verb expressing obligation or possession; "have/has got to" meaning must, or "have/has got" meaning possess.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Past tense and past participle of *get*.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is complete. The legal term *got* is not a verb at all — it is a noun of Anglo-Norman French origin denoting a physical drainage feature. A researcher encountering *got* in a modern context will almost certainly read it as ordinary English grammar. In a medieval or early modern legal record, it signals infrastructure, not grammar.
Common Confusion
*Got* and *goat* (also rendered *gote*) are variant spellings of the same term in historical sources and should not be confused with the animal. Burrill cross-references the two spellings explicitly. Researchers should also distinguish *got/goat* from *gut*, another drainage-related term appearing in some regional English records, which could describe a narrow channel or watercourse of natural rather than artificial origin.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a near-invisible trap in historical source research. Because *got* is indistinguishable from ordinary English past tense at a glance, automated text search and even careful manual reading can cause researchers to miss or misread occurrences of the legal term entirely. In transcribed or digitized records of medieval and early modern conveyances, boundary descriptions, and drainage disputes, *got* functioning as a noun will not be flagged by any standard search logic.
Researchers working with English manorial records, fen drainage documents, or early land grants in low-lying or marshy regions — particularly in East Anglia, the Somerset Levels, and comparable areas — should be alert to *got*, *goat*, and *gote* as technical terms describing drainage infrastructure that may affect property boundaries, easements, or maintenance obligations described in the instrument.
The term does not appear to have survived into modern legal usage. Its appearance is therefore a reliable marker of historical source material, but researchers should verify the spelling context carefully before concluding a document uses the legal rather than the grammatical sense.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary authority consulted here and provides only a brief entry: "L. Fr. A sluice, drain or ditch. Kelham. See Goat." The reference to Kelham points to Robert Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman and Old French Language* (1779), which is the underlying philological source Burrill draws on for Anglo-Norman terminology. No substantive divergence exists among historical dictionaries on this term because coverage is so thin — most legal dictionaries omit *got* entirely. Burrill's value here is precisely in capturing vocabulary from Norman-derived legal French that fell out of general use before the consolidation of modern legal dictionaries. What historical sources collectively miss is any treatment of how *got* appears in actual pleading or conveyancing practice, which would require recourse to primary records rather than dictionary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to the English common law tradition and its Anglo-Norman French substrate. It has no equivalent usage in Scots law, civil law systems, or American law. Researchers working with colonial American land records are unlikely to encounter it.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Water Rights
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Drainage and Watercourses
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Norman French Legal Terminology