in Law, is used by Bracton, for that sustenance which a man, committed for felony, is to have out of his lands or goods for himself and his family during imprisonment. In stat. 6 Edw. I. it is used for an allowance in meat or clothes. In some manors, the tenants have common of estovers; that is, necessary botes or allowances out of the lord's wood: in which last sense, estovers comprehends house-bote, hay-bote, and plow-bote; so that if a man have in his grant these general words, de rationabili estoverio in boscis, &c. he may thereby claim all the rest.

Estovers is also used for alimony, which, if the husband refuses to pay, there is, besides the ordinary process of excommunication, a writ at common law, de estoverii habendi, in order to recover it.