apron-string hold

noun

noun

Idiomatic, Informal, Obsolete An estate held by a man during his wife's life.

He resided at Staleck and the fief made was converted into an "apron-string hold" and hereditary fief, for the benefit of his wife and daughter; for that in opposition to the Emperor himself, he had remained firm to the Archbishop in a Diet held at Mainz.1872, W. O. von Horn, The Rhine: History and Legends of Its Castles, Abbeys, Monasteries, and Towns, J. Niedner, page 270:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.