adjective
prescriptive
Relating to legal rights acquired through long use.
The neighbors claim a prescriptive right to use the driveway.
Etymology
The legal word belongs to prescription, whose older Latin sense concerned a preliminary legal assertion or exception. It developed into the acquisition or establishment of rights through long use.
More examples
- Decades of uninterrupted use may support a prescriptive easement.
- The dispute concerns prescriptive rights to draw water from the well.
- Using a path with permission generally does not create prescriptive rights.
Forms
prescription noun — Acquisition of legal rights through long use.