fief
Pronunciation: /fiːf/
The English word “fief” has 3 meanings listed here.
noun
- Land held of a superior, particularly on condition of homage, fealty, and personal service, especially military service.
- Synonym of estate: any land, when considered as a region over which the owner exercises lordly control.
- A territory, a domain, an area over which one exercises lordly control, particularly with regard to corporate or governmental bureaucracies.
Etymology
From Middle French fief, from Old French fief, from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (whence also Old French fieu, fied), from Old Frankish *fehu (“cattle, livestock”), from Proto-Germanic *fehu (“cattle, sheep”), from Proto-Indo-European *peku-, *peḱu- (“sheep”). Doublet of fee, feud, and feoff.
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.