freehold

& a. [Eng. free, and hold.] A. As substantive: English and American Law : An estate or real property held in fee-simple in America, or in England either in fee-simple or fee-tail; the tenure by which such an estate is held. Anciently it was one of the two chief tenures known as tenure in free socage, and was the only free method for laymen to hold property. During feudal times the English freeholder had to render some small services of an honorable kind; now these are abolished. A freehold estate must po e immobility, in other words must consist either of land or of some interest arising out of land annexed to it. Secondly, it must be of indeterminate duration. "No alienation of lands holden in chief should be available, touching the freehold or inheritance thereof, but only where it were made by matter of record." - Bacon : Office of Alienation. B. As adj .: Held in fee-simple or fee-tail; of the nature of a freehold. "He determined, therefore, to postpone for a short time the confiscation of the freehold property of refractory clergymen." -Macaulay : Hist. Eng . , ch. vi.