Peppercorn rent

A peppercorn rent is a nominal or trivial amount of rent that is paid in order to legalise a rental contract. The phrase dates from the late 16th/early 17th century when a single peppercorn was first used in such transactions, pepper being quite highly valued in those days. The significance of the original expression does not imply that peppercorns are intrinsically worthless; rather that one peppercorn is of nominal or trivial value. By the late 18th century, however, peppercorn had come to mean anything of insignificant value as in a ‘peppercorn sum’ or a ‘peppercorn proposition’.