Seise

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To vest ownership of an estate in land (to someone). transitive

    "There a baron was created and seised by the king in a single act. His tenure was a function of his personal relationship with his lord king."

  2. 2
    To put in possession. transitive, with-of

    "He then died intestate; and I observed that his heir-at-law was not actually seised of Whiteacre, the possession of which became vacant on his ancestor's death"

  3. 3
    To seize. archaic

Synonyms

All synonyms
possesspossess

Example

More examples

"There a baron was created and seised by the king in a single act. His tenure was a function of his personal relationship with his lord king."

Etymology

From Middle English seisen, from Old French seisir (“to put in possession of", "to take possession of”), from Early Medieval Latin sacīre, from Frankish *sakjan (“to sue, bring a legal charge against”), from Proto-Germanic *sakōną (“to charge, seek legal action against”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to track”). Cognate with Old High German sahhan (“to argue, scold”), Old English sacian (“to strive, contend”). More at sake.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.