Meaning & use
udal
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Relating to a form of land tenure, historically found in Orkney and Shetland, in which land is held outright without feudal obligations.
See it in a sentence
Under udal law, the family owned the land freely, without owing service to any lord.
Legal historians still study udal tenure as a rare survival of pre-feudal land rights in Britain.
A note on using this word
"Udal" derives from Old Norse "óðal," and its legal system survived in Scotland's Northern Isles because of their Norse heritage.
Words with a similar meaning
allodial
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