fief
Americannoun
-
a fee or feud held of a feudal lord; a tenure of land subject to feudal obligations.
-
a territory held in fee.
noun
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
Explanation
Under the feudal system, a fief was a piece of land. This is short for fiefdom. Words that go along with fief are vassal and feudal lord; the lord (kind of like our landlords) owned the fief and the vassal was subject to all of his rules. If you were the lord of a fief, your tenant was your servant. If you were to work on someone's farm but were paid nothing, it would be like you were working a fief. The word is not used much these days — though people still don’t like landlords much.
Vocabulary lists containing fief
Beowulf vocabulary
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Medieval Europe - Introductory
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya as a fief, would be unacceptable to the elite.
From Washington Post • Oct. 6, 2022
The Bundesliga acting as Bayern Munich’s fief is, I think, a problem for German soccer.
From New York Times • Apr. 29, 2022
The kingdom of Naples passed at that time for a fief of the holy see.
From The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII. by Llorente, Juan Antonio
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
