Hotchpot

In civil and property law, hotchpot (sometimes referred to as hotchpotch or the hotchpotch rule) is the blending, combining or offsetting of property (typically gifts) to ensure equality of a later division of property.[1][2]

The Court of Chancery, Plate 22 of Microcosm of London (1808).

The name hotch-pot is taken from a kind of pudding, and is derived from the French word hocher, or "shake." It was used as early as 1292 as a legal term, and from the 15th century in cooking for a sort of broth with many ingredients (see Hodge-Podge soup), and so it is used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture.[3]

  1. ^ Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, ISBN 0-87779-339-5
  2. ^ "Hotchpot". Uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  3. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hotch-pot" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 803.