fiar

Noun

fiar (plural fiars)

1. (historical, Scots law) One in whom the property of an estate is vested, subject to the estate of a liferenter.
   • I say, since ye hae sae muckle consideration for me, I'se be blithe to accept your kindness; and my mother and me (she's a life-renter, and I am fiar, o' the lands o' Wideopen) would grant you a wadset, or an heritable bond, for the siller, and to pay the annual-rent half-yearly; and Saunders...1816, Walter Scott, “The Black Dwarf”, in A Complete Edition of the Waverley Novels, volume 13, published 1831, page 108
2. (historical) The price of grain in the counties of Scotland, as legally fixed on an annual basis.
   • It seems to be a practice as improper as it is unnecessary, to strike the fiars in three different qualities of the same species of grain; and it should, in our humble opinion, be discontinued.1817, Committee members, Report respecting the Striking of the Fiars of Grain for the Crop of 1816 for the County of Lanark: The Farmers Magazine, volume 18, page 310
   • It was answered by the Sheriff. 1st, That the Act of Sederunt did not impose any positive injunction on Sheriffs to strike Fiars; that if the Fiars were substantially just, the Court could have no power to reduce them; and that the Act of Sederunt had never been observed in East Lothian;[…].1842, Fife Fiars, from 1619 to 1841 Inclusive, page vi