n. One who occupies or cultivates a croft; specifically, a small farmer on the western coast and islands of Scotland. The Scotch crofter is a small land-tenant, whose holding is not large enough to be called a farm or to support him by tillage. He is the counterpart of the Irish cottier.n. Originally a customary tenant with well-defined rights to his holding, in the early nineteenth century the crofter came to be regarded merely as a tenant at will. Wholesale evictions of crofters led, in 1883, to the appointment of a parliamentary commission of investigation, the result of which was the enactment, in 1885, of the Crofters Act, which guaranteed permanence of tenure, compensation for improvements, and fair rents, determined by a permanent commission.