Dictionary.net

A kind of customary estate in the North of England falling under the general class of copyhold, but distinguished from copyhold by many of its incidents: a term applied to denote various rights or claims which tenants maintain against their landlords, as the right of the tenant, conceded in some parts of Great Britain, to compensation for the unexhausted improvements of the land which he has held, if he should be forced to leave it. The term is specifically applied to a custom, long prevalent in Ulster, either ensuring a permanence of tenure in the same occupant without liability to any other increase of rent than may be sanctioned by the general sentiments of the community, or entitling a tenant of a farm to receive purchase-money, amounting to so many years' rent, on its being transferred to another tenant.