fee
- a charge or payment for professional services: a doctor's fee.
- a sum paid or charged for a privilege: an admission fee.
- a charge allowed by law for the service of a public officer.
- Law.
- an estate of inheritance in land, either absolute and without limitation to any particular class of heirs(fee simple) or limited to a particular class of heirs (fee tail).
- an inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of the performing of certain services.
- a territory held in fee.
- a gratuity; tip.
- to give a fee to.
- Chiefly Scot. to hire; employ.
Origin of fee
Synonyms
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.comExamples from the Web for fee
Contemporary Examples
The Federal Duck Stamp Act raised the fee on stamps needed to hunt waterfowl on federal land from $15 to $25.
Nazis, Sunscreen, and Sea Gull Eggs: Congress in 2014 Was Hella ProductiveBen Jacobs
December 29, 2014
Meanwhile CBS announced a similar deal this year that will offer their catalogue of shows online for a monthly fee.
Instead, your $25 entry fee gets you a sketchbook that appears handmade.
This fee, however, was not “global” enough to include hospital charges or anything else on a long list of exclusions.
I began with the simplest cost I could think of, the fee for some routine blood work I had scheduled for later that month.
Historical Examples
I will enclose the second payment of her fee in a letter which I am writing to her.
Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton CampusJessie Graham Flower
I could introduce you to a duchess, but then the fee is high.
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
The doctor's fee is four and sixpence, and you need not consult him often.
The ChanningsMrs. Henry Wood
Any boy in the school may enter, and there will be no fee collected.
Frank Roscoe's SecretAllen Chapman
But, as a lawyer—minus the fee—I'll tell you what you should do.
In a Steamer Chair and Other StoriesRobert Barr
fee
- a payment asked by professional people or public servants for their servicesa doctor's fee; school fees
- a charge made for a privilegean entrance fee
- property law
- an interest in land capable of being inheritedSee fee simple, fee tail
- the land held in fee
- (in feudal Europe) the land granted by a lord to his vassal
- an obsolete word for a gratuity
- in fee
- law(of land) in absolute ownership
- archaicin complete subjection
- rare to give a fee to
- mainly Scot to hire for a fee
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for fee
n.
late 13c., from Old French fieu, fief "fief, possession, holding, domain; feudal duties, payment," from Medieval Latin feodum "land or other property whose use is granted in return for service," widely said to be from Frankish *fehu-od "payment-estate," or a similar Germanic compound, in which the first element is cognate with Old English feoh "money, movable property, cattle" (also German Vieh "cattle," Gothic faihu "money, fortune"), from PIE *peku- "cattle" (cf. Sanskrit pasu, Lithuanian pekus "cattle;" Latin pecu "cattle," pecunia "money, property"); second element similar to Old English ead "wealth."
OED rejects this, and suggests a simple adaptation of Germanic fehu, leaving the Medieval Latin -d- unexplained. Sense of "payment for services" first recorded late 14c. Fee-simple is "absolute ownership," as opposed to fee-tail "entailed ownership," inheritance limited to some particular class of heirs (second element from Old French taillir "to cut, to limit").