Easement

From Old French aisement.

Full definition of easement

(plural easements)

(legal right to use another person's property)(legal) Legal right to use another person's property, generally in order to cross a part of the property, or to gain access to something on the property.The power company has an easement to put their poles along the edge of this land.

2010, Marianne M. Jennings, Real Estate Law, The unrecorded document clearly granted an easement to the hallway and Watson had the document prior to closing.
2002, William H. Pivar, Robert Bruss, California Real Estate Law, Pacific Telephone had an easement "for the stringing of telephone and electric light and power wires" over the property of Salvaty.
1994, Theodore Steinberg, Nature incorporated: industrialization and the waters of New England, The Lake Company actually had an easement - a right to flood some of this land - dating from 1845.

1666, John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to Chief of Sinners, This therefore was a great easement to my mind, to wit, that my sin was pardonable,...
1795, Edmund Burke, Letter To A Noble Lord, In a more confined application, I certainly stand in need of every kind of relief and easement much more than he does.

(archaic, euphemistic) The act of relieving oneself: defecating or urinating
(architecture) A curved member instead of an abrupt change of direction, as in a baseboard, handrail, etc.