socage

or soc·cage

[ sok-ij ]

/ ˈsɒk ɪdʒ /

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noun Medieval English Law.

a tenure of land held by the tenant in performance of specified services or by payment of rent, and not requiring military service.

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Origin of socage

1275–1325; Middle English sokage<Anglo-French socage, equivalent to socsoke + -age-age

Words nearby socage

sob story, sob stuff, Sobukwe , soc, soca, socage, socager, so-called, soccer, soccer mom, Socceroos

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use socage in a sentence

It empowered persons possessed of land in free socage to give or devise same for the maintenance of the poor.
Landholding In England|Joseph Fisher
All future tenures created by the king to be in free and common socage, reserving rents to the Crown and also fines on alienation.
Landholding In England|Joseph Fisher
Some of them as tenants in free socage may maintain their position; many fall down into the class of tenants in villeinage.
Domesday Book and Beyond|Frederic William Maitland
The agricultural services of the socage tenants had long disappeared.
The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century|Richard Henry Tawney

Soc′ager, Soc′man, a tenant by socage; Soc′manry, tenure by socage.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements)|Various

British Dictionary definitions for socage

socage

/ (ˈsɒkɪdʒ) /

noun

English legal history the tenure of land by certain services, esp of an agricultural nature

English law the freehold tenure of land

Derived forms of socage

socager, noun

Word Origin for socage

C14: from Anglo-French, from soc soke

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012