tailzie means an entailment or deed whereby the legal course of succession is cut off, and an arbitrary one substituted. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why “tailzie” is a great word
A legal entailment in Scots law that cuts off the ordinary course of succession, substituting an unalterable, prescribed line of heirs. From Old French *tailler* ("to cut, to limit"), reflecting the legal concept of cutting off the natural line of inheritance; the spelling with 'z' (as in tailzie) is a Scots variant, influenced by orthographic conventions seen in names like Mackenzie. The term is part of the legal compound from Medieval Latin *feodum talliatum* ("cut fee"). Unlike "fee simple," which denotes land owned freely, or a "bequest," which is a revocable gift, a tailzie is a binding channel cut through time. It is the silent weight on a son's shoulders, the invisible fence around a daughter's ambition, and the unyielding chill of an entailed house passing from one obligated hand to the next—a monument to the human desire to defy time's entropy by binding the future to the past.
Etymology
From French tailler (“to cut”). See tail (“a limitation”). For the z, compare etymology of English Mackenzie.
noun
- An entailment or deed whereby the legal course of succession is cut off, and an arbitrary one substituted.