From Middle English escheat, achete, eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- +‎ cadere (“fall”). Doublet of cheat.

• IPA^(key): /ɪsˈt͡ʃiːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

escheat (countable and uncountable, plural escheats)

1. (law) The return of property of a deceased person to the state (originally to a feudal lord) where there are no legal heirs or claimants.
2. (law) The property so reverted.
3. (obsolete) Plunder, booty.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene.[…], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Approching, with bold words and bitter threat, / Bad that same boaster, as he mote, on high / To leaue to him that Lady for excheat, / Or bide him battell without further treat.

4. That which falls to one; a reversion or return.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene.[…], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 25:

     And by my ruines thinkes to make them great: / To make one great by others losse, is bad excheat

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:escheat.

escheat (third-person singular simple present escheats, present participle escheating, simple past and past participle escheated)

1. (transitive) To put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.
   • 1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 477:

     Arms are very rigidly controlled in Scotland by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. […] Under an Act of 1592, Lyon King of Arms can escheat to the Sovereign all goods unlawfully displaying arms.

   • 2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 329:

     Failure to perform duties opened the culprit to charges of ‘felony’ (felonia), providing grounds for the king to escheat the fief.

2. (intransitive) To revert to a state or lord because its previous owner died without an heir.

• escheatery
• escheator
• escheatment

• cheetas, eatches, ceaseth, teaches