reversionaryn.adj.

1627 J. Donne Serm. Lady Danuers 163 Still a Reuersionarie; And a Reuersionary vpon a long life; The whole world must die, before she come to a possession of this Reuersion.

1868 Hansard's Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser. 193 1093/1 The various interests of the lessees and the reversionaries were not identical, and consequently the property suffered.

1895 Engin. Mag. 9 838 The life-renter would have no control in deteriorating the principal, and that the fee would go down to the reversionaries unimpaired.

1905 Hibbert Jrnl. Oct. 76 He becomes the reversionary therefore of all its claims on the race.

1917 R. W. Seton-Watson Rise Nationality in Balkans ii. xviii. 199 Regarding themselves as the natural reversionaries of Macedonia, they claimed Salonica as a necessary appendage to its hinterland.

2008 A. I. Lane For Whites Only? 63 Alice E. Parley, a widow who owns a life estate in a few slaves, is permitted to remove them from the state without the consent of the reversionaries.

1640 J. Howell Δενδρολογια 54 All places of profit and honour were either ingross'd or forestalld by reversionary grants (the bane and bug-beares of industry).

1712 W. Howel Medulla Hist. Anglicanæ (ed. 6) 413 A Sale of Reversionary Annuities.

1720 London Gaz. No. 5864/4 Reversionary Annuities upon the 14 per Cents.

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison I. xlii. 304 She has, 'tis true, reversionary expectations.

1818 W. Cruise Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. (ed. 2) IV. 215 It was argued, that this was a reversionary lease, to take effect after the determination of another lease then in existence.

1845 Ld. Campbell Lives Chancellors II. lvi. 409 On his releasing a reversionary grant of the Mastership of the Rolls.

1876 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest V. xxii. 19 A Norman grantee..was not always ready to respect the reversionary rights of the church.

1900 S. J. Weyman Story Francis Cludde (new ed.) xvii. 193 He thinks he has a kind of reversionary interest in the property.

1991 Investors Chron. 26 July 26/1 Home income plans..either entail borrowing money or, under what is called a reversionary scheme, relinquishing ownership of the property.

1733 Hist. Reg. No. 71. 175 Great Injury and Injustice have in numerous Instances been done to Orphans, and the Reversionary Heirs of these Estates.

1739 R. Coope Let. South-Sea Company Ded. sig. A2 Many Injuries having been done in various Instances..to the Reversionary Heirs of those Estates.

1776 E. Griffith Story Lady Juliana Harley II. lxii. 149 Luckily for me there is a reversionary heir to the other ten, and I could not bestow it on my vile husband.

1804 W. H. Marshall Landed Prop. Eng. 3 Conventional Rents are acknowledgments reserved, by a proprietor of lands which he has thus temporarily sold—that he may have the right of convening the tenants, annually or otherwise, to his court or audit; to acknowledge him as..the reversionary proprietor, etc.

1889 Spectator 9 Nov. The maritime Powers cannot settle..who shall be reversionary heir to the gateway of the Black Sea.

1906 Citator Aug. 590 The presumptive reversionary heirs may sue to restrain a widow from committing waste.

1999 J. Casey Early Mod. Spain ix. 197 The chief consideration seems to have been that he was reversionary heir to this uncle's estate.

1816 W. Scott Old Mortality vi, in Tales of my Landlord 1st Ser. III. 119 Your person would be with me, and your mind with the cold meat and reversionary pasties.

1866 W. Collins Armadale I. ii. 89 I received half his salary, and lived contentedly on his reversionary scraps.

1871 C. Darwin Descent of Man i. iv. 130 These several reversionary, as well as the strictly rudimentary, structures reveal the descent of man from some lower form.

1871 St. G. Mivart On Genesis of Species v. 123 It is rather in the horse than in the pig that we might look for the appearance of a reversionary proboscis.

1912 C. B. Ellwood Sociol. & Its Psychol. Aspects viii. 169 Hence the reversionary character of many revolutionary periods. They appear to us..epochs in which the brute and the savage in man reassert themselves.

1923 Ann. Bot. 37 451 (title) A reversionary character in the stock..and its significance.

1963 Proc. XVI Internat. Congr. Zool. I. 295 A decrease of the reversionary aberrations indicates the stabilization of the specific characters.

1833 Manch. Times & Gaz. 13 July A Policy of Assurance..will be sold to such reversionary bonus as may be hereafter allowed thereto.

1969 Times 30 Apr. 26 In the United Kingdom the rate of reversionary bonus for Ordinary branch assurances has been increased by 2s. per cent.

2001 Financial Times 27 Jan. (Money section) 12/7 Reversionary bonuses have been declining since the early 1990s as life assurers have adjusted payouts to take account of lower interest rates.