Also 6–8 cestuy, pl. cestuis. [AF., OF. cestui (demonstr. pron.) that person, orig. only accusative (nom. cest):—late L. ecce istum, with analogical final after cui, lui: cf. celui.] A person, or the person (who), he (who). Only in phrases:
Cestui que (qui) trust, cestui que use, more fully cestui a que use (= al use de qui) le trust est créé: the person for whose benefit or use anything is given in trust to another.
Cestui (a) que vie: he on whose life land is held, or the person for whose life lands, tenements or hereditaments are granted.
Cestui que is also used attrib. as sb., and cestui que use as the name of a procedure.
1555. Perkins, Prof. Bk., viii. § 579. When freehold or inheritance of Lands, tenements, etc. … are devised by cestuy.
1670. Blount, Law Dict., Cestui qui vie (in true French, Cestui a vie de qui), is he for whose life any Land or Tenement is granted.
1714. Act 13 Anne c. 13 § 4, in Oxf. & Camb. Enactm., 61. Such person or persons as they have reason to believe to be the cestuyque trust of the advowson.
1789. Bentham, Princ. Legisl., xviii. § 25, note. The phrase in full length would run in some such manner as this, cestuy al use de qui le trust est créé: he to whose use the trust or benefit is created. In a particular case a cestuy que trust is called by the Roman Law fidei-commissarius.
1809. Tomlins, Law Dict., Cestui que use, he to whose use any other man is enfeoffed of lands or tenements.
1844. Williams, Real Prop. (1877), 20. The person for whose life the land is holden is called the cestui que vie.
1853. Wharton, Pennsylv. Digest, II. 781. If a trustee invest trust money in land, the cestui qui trust may at his option accept the land or refuse it.
1858. Ld. St. Leonards, Handy Bk. Prop. Law, xxi. 159. There are few social questions of more importance than … the relation between trustees and their cestuis que trust … or the persons for whom they are trustees.
1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. II. iii. 79. A great many cestuique trusts.
