Definition
In old Scots law, a granddaughter. The term appears in early Scottish legal texts and records to denote a female grandchild, used in the context of inheritance, succession, and family designation within feudal Scots law.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with early Scottish legal records — particularly pre-Union charters, testament datives, and feudal succession documents — may encounter *neipce* where a modern instrument would name a beneficiary or heir as "granddaughter." Misreading the term as a niece (the false cognate in modern French and Scots usage) is the principal hazard: the two relationships carry materially different succession consequences under both old Scots and canon law rules of consanguinity.
The term is archaic and will appear almost exclusively in primary sources predating the eighteenth century. It is unlikely to appear in reported decisions or statutory texts. Researchers using Latin or Scots Latin document collections should note that the related Latin form *neptis* carries the same meaning (granddaughter) and similarly risks confusion with the distinct term for niece in later usage.
Because the term is Scots-specific and appears in a narrow historical window, it will not surface in English common law materials. Comparative searches across Scots and English sources for inheritance disputes involving female-line descendants should treat this term and its variants (*eneya*, *neptis*) as a distinct family rather than assuming equivalence with English terms for collateral female relations.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source to record this term, citing Skene's *De Verborum Significatione* — a sixteenth-century glossary of Scots legal terms by Sir John Skene — as its authority. Skene's work is a primary reference for archaic Scots legal vocabulary and represents the most direct available source for this term's meaning.
Burrill gives the definition tersely: "a granddaughter," in old Scotch law. No other historical shelf dictionary in the standard Law Mind corpus records *neipce*. This reflects both the term's geographic restriction to Scots law and its early obsolescence even within that jurisdiction.
The Skene citation (*voc. Eneya*) suggests the Scots form *eneya* as a related or variant entry in Skene's original text, indicating the term had variant spellings in early sources. Researchers should treat *neipce*, *eneya*, and the Latin *neptis* as a cluster when searching early Scottish legal records.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is exclusively a Scots law archaism. It has no recognized counterpart or usage in English common law, Welsh law, or Irish law. It is relevant only to research in pre-modern Scottish legal records and historical Scots feudal succession.