messuage

noun

1. Originally, a plot of land as the site for a dwelling house and its appurtenant interests; now, a dwelling house or residential building together with its outbuildings and assigned land.

   “Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir / To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands, / Which, with a long minority and care, / Promised to turn out well in proper hands: […]”

   “She went—and in one month / They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, / To lands in Kent and messuages in York, / And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile / And educated whisker.”

   “Page 174, line 25. Perhaps the Richard Longebothome here mentioned was the same man as the Richard who herioted the property in 1509. Apr. 23, I Hen. VIII (1509). Ric. Longebothome paid xxiijˢ iiijᵈ [23s 4d] fine for license of herioting one messuage called Longebothome, one cottage, and 40 acres of land and meadow in Soureby after the death of Ric. Longebothome and Agnes, his wife, grandfather […]”

   “Matthias turned his lonely house into a mart where furniture, plate and titledeeds to fields and messuages could be brought, evaluated, and transferred to the hands of the primal twelve as administrators.”