Admesurer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. To measure something out or divide it into proportionate shares, a sense used in old legal and property contexts
2. Apportioning or allotting a quantity by measurement, as was once done with land, rents, or goods in older English law
3. Marking out or distributing a portion by careful measure, an archaic usage found in medieval and early modern records

Etymology: "Admeasurer" belongs to the legal vocabulary of medieval England, where an admeasurer was an official who determined and assigned a share, usually by measuring it out. The term is a formation from "admeasure," which combines the prefix "ad-" with "measure." Its root is Latin "mensurare," "to measure," which passed into Old French as "mesurer." The verb's most specialized use was in property law. "Admeasurement of dower" was the process of fixing how much land a widow was entitled to, and the official who carried it out was the admeasurer. The sense of measuring out a portion, rather than measuring a length, is the one that gives the word its character. The English word keeps that older legal flavour, and it is now rare outside historical and legal writing.

Synonyms: assessor, measurer