Chiefly Sc. Forms: 4 lege pouste, legge pouste, 5 leg(is po(u)ste, 6 leg powster, liege pouste, 7– liege poustie. [a. OF. lige poesté, med.L. ligia potestas: see LIEGE a. and POUSTIE.] The state of being in health and full possession of one’s faculties. Now only in Sc. Law (see quot. 1882).
c. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 5606. Þai wrethed God in þair legge pousté.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, V. 165. Bot and I lif in lege pouste, Thair ded sall rycht weill vengit be.
1458. Burgh Rec. Peebles (1872), 129. Scho had cofit fra hir son in his leg poste qwyl he was lewand. Ibid. (1462), 143. The quhylkis scho alegit was gevyn to her by … her fadyr in his legis pouste.
15[?]. Bk. Alexander (Bannatyne Club), 361. Gif I leif lang in liege pouste.
c. 1560. Aberd. Reg., XXIV. (Jam.). Ane testament maid be vmquhill Alexr. Kay baxter in his leg powster.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., II. xviii. § 7. It is lesome to ilk man to give ane reasonabill portion of his lands, to quhom he pleases, induring his lifetime, in his liege poustie.
a. 1768. Erskine, Instit. Law Scot., III. Tit. viii. § 97 (1773), I. 595. Where the ancestor has validly obliged himself in liege poustie to grant a deed.
1882. Bell’s Dict. Law Scot., Liege poustie, is that state of health which gives a person full power to dispose mortis causa, or otherwise, of his heritable property.
