Abeysance, an English law term importing that a hereditament, dignity, or office is not vested in any one, but is suspended, until the true owner appears, or the right thereto is determined. Titles of honour are said to be in abeyance when there is for a time no person entitled to them, as when an earl dies, leaving only daughters. So, when a parson dies, the life-interest, or freehold, of the glebe is in abeyance until his successor is appointed. The abstract right of property in the glebe is in perpetual abeyance, because no existing parson is ever entitled to more than the life interest.
In the United States, personal property may be in a state of legal sequestration or abeyance. A parsonage, a vessel captured at sea, until condemned as a prize, may be in abeyance. The remainder or reversion in fee, where there is a tenant of the freehold, may for a time be said to be in abeyance, when without any particular owner. The right of a citizen to vote may be held in abeyance, when he is not allowed to exercise that right.