from
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
LIFE-RENT, Scotch law. A right to use and enjoy a thing during life, the
substance of it being preserved. A life-rent cannot, therefore, be
constituted upon things which perish in the use; and though it may upon
subjects which gradually wear out by time, as household furniture, &c., yet
it is generally applied to heritable subjects. Life-rents are divided into
conventional and legal.
2.-1. The conventional are either simple or by reservation. A simple
life-rent, or by a separate constitution, is that which is granted by the
proprietor in favor of another. A life-rent by reservation is that which a
proprietor reserves to himself, in the same writing by which he conveys the
fee to another.
3.-2. Life-rents, by law, are the terce and the courtesy. See Terce;
Courtesy.