fief

American  

[feef] / fif /

noun

1. a fee or feud held of a feudal lord; a tenure of land subject to feudal obligations.

2. a territory held in fee.

3. fiefdom.

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fief British  

/ fiːf /

noun

1. (in feudal Europe) the property or fee granted to a vassal for his maintenance by his lord in return for service

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fief Cultural  

1. Under feudalism, a landed estate given by a lord to a vassal in return for the vassal's service to the lord. The vassal could use the fief as long as he remained loyal to the lord.

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Etymology

Origin of fief

1605–15; < French, variant of Old French fieu, fie, cognate with Anglo-French fe fee < Germanic; compare Old High German fihu, Old English feoh cattle, property; akin to Latin pecū flock of sheep, pecus cattle, pecūnia wealth

Example Sentences

The move is an acknowledgment that bringing in an outsider to create a new AI fief at Apple ultimately failed the key test of success at Apple: delivering products that consumers want to buy.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 2, 2025

To end the practice of treating church positions like a fief to be passed on to the officeholder’s children, priests were told to practice celibacy and were forbidden to marry.

From Textbooks • Apr. 19, 2023

Mr. Monastyrsky, like Mr. Zelensky, took office pledging to root out the corruption that had long bedeviled Ukraine’s government, in particular the interior ministry’s history of operating as a separate political fief.

From New York Times • Jan. 18, 2023

Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya as a fief, would be unacceptable to the elite.

From Washington Post • Oct. 6, 2022

The territorial element was the benefice, or fief, granted to the vassal by the lord to be used on certain conditions by the former while the title to it remained with the latter.

From A Source Book of Medi?val History Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance by Ogg, Frederic Austin