métayage
/meɪteɪˈɑːʒ/ /mɛteɪˈɑːʒ/(also metayage)
noun
A system of land tenure in which the farmer pays a certain proportion (usually half) of the produce to the landowner as rent, and the owner provides (a part of) the stock and seed. Also more generally: any form of sharecropping.
- The system of métayage was developed in late medieval France and became the dominant system in southern France and parts of Italy before the 19th cent.; similar systems have at times been common in India, Japan, eastern Europe, and the southern United States..
Origin
Late 19th century; earliest use found in Donald Mackenzie Wallace (1841–1919), journalist and author. From French métayage from métayer + -age.