Definition
A Scots law term for a widow's right to a liferent — that is, a life estate — in one-third of the heritable property (land, tithes, wadsets, and annual rents) in which her husband died infeft (seised). Terce is the Scottish functional equivalent of dower at common law. It arose by operation of law and attached only where the widow had not accepted separate conventional provisions made in lieu of her legal rights. The right was to the rents and fruits of the property, not outright ownership, and it terminated upon the widow's death.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The third hour of daylight, approximately 9 a.m.; the canonical office of the Church appointed for that hour; and (separately) a widow's liferent right to a third of her husband's heritable property.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Directs the reader to "Tierce," suggesting the primary common usage was the ecclesiastical and musical sense of the word, not the legal one.
Editorial note: The ecclesiastical and canonical meaning of terce — the third canonical hour — is entirely unrelated to the Scots law property right. Burrill's entry notes both senses without clearly separating them, which could mislead a researcher skimming historical sources. In legal contexts, terce refers exclusively to the widow's property right; any reference to the canonical hour in a legal document signals a different subject entirely.
Common Confusion
Terce is frequently compared to dower but they are not identical. Dower at English common law attached to all lands of which the husband was seised at any point during the marriage; terce in Scots law attached only to lands in which the husband died infeft. Terce also operated within a distinct legal system — Scots law, which blends civil law and common law traditions — and researchers should not assume that rules governing dower in English or American sources translate directly to terce. Additionally, terce should not be confused with legitim (the child's portion) or jus relictae (the widow's moveable property right), both of which are separate components of Scots succession law.
Why It Matters in Research
Terce is a term of Scots law and will appear almost exclusively in Scottish legal sources, Scottish estate records, and comparative law treatises. Researchers working in English common law sources will not encounter it as an operative term. Key navigational points:
Terce was effectively abolished by the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, which replaced the old heritable/moveable distinction with a unified system of prior rights and legal rights. Post-1964 sources will discuss terce only historically. Any research touching on Scottish widows' property rights before 1964 must account for terce as a live legal concept.
The infeftment requirement is a critical distinction from dower. A husband had to die infeft — formally vested in the property under Scots conveyancing procedure — for terce to arise. This procedural nuance does not appear clearly in the shortest dictionary entries (particularly Black's) and requires consultation of fuller institutional sources such as Forbes' Institutions or Bell's Principles.
Researchers using historical Scottish estate documents, trust records, or sasines (the Scottish register of land rights) should expect terce claims to appear as encumbrances on inherited property. Conventional provisions accepted by the widow in a marriage contract would discharge terce, so marriage contracts are a necessary companion source.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition: terce is dower in Scots law, specifically a liferent of one-third of the husband's heritable estate. Bouvier's is the most precise, noting that the right arises only where the widow has not accepted special conventional provisions — a qualification that Black's omits entirely. Burrill's is the most detailed, specifying the categories of heritable subjects (lands, tithes, wadsets, and annual rents) and citing Forbes' Institutions as authority, which provides a useful pointer to primary institutional sources.
Burrill's entry is complicated by its inclusion of the ecclesiastical sense of the term in the same passage, a structural artifact of the dictionary's arrangement rather than a substantive legal connection. Researchers should treat those two senses as fully separate.
None of the three dictionaries address the abolition of terce or its relationship to the broader structure of Scots succession law — legitim, jus relictae, and the prior rights scheme. For that context, a researcher must go beyond the historical dictionaries to Scottish institutional writers and modern succession law commentary.
Jurisdictional Note
Terce is exclusively a Scots law concept. It has no operative equivalent in English or American law under that name, though it is functionally analogous to dower. Researchers working in any common law jurisdiction other than Scotland will encounter terce only in comparative or historical discussions.