fee
/fiː/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms fees feeing feed
- noun An amount charged in return for permission to do something: “television license fee”
- noun An amount charged ancillary to the (occasionally null) base cost of a product or service; an additional charge, nominally for some additional privilege, ability or permission. “booking fee, late fee”
- noun An amount charged for something: the base cost of purchasing some thing, service, etc. “admission fee, membership fee, drivers' license fee”
- noun A fixed rate or price charged for (chiefly white-collar) professional services. “lawyers' fees, tuition fee, bank fees, legal fees, consulting fee”
- noun (law) An inheritable estate in land, whether absolute and without limitation to potential heirs (fee simple) or with limitations to particular kinds of heirs (fee tail).
- noun (law, historical) A right to the use of a superior's land as a stipend for certain services to be performed, typically military service.
- noun (law, historical) Synonym of fief: the land so held.
- noun (law, historical) An inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of performance of certain services, typically military service.
- verb To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A diminutive of the female given name Fiona.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English fee, fe, feh, feoh, from Old English feoh (“cattle, property, wealth, money, payment, tribute, fee”) with contamination from Old French fieu, fief (from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (see feud), from Frankish *fehu (“cattle, livestock”); whence fief), both from Proto-Germanic *fehu (“cattle, sheep, livestock, owndom”), from Proto-Indo-European *péḱu (“livestock”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Fäi (“cattle, livestock”), West Frisian fee (“livestock”), Cimbrian biighe, viighe (“animal, beast”), Dutch vee (“cattle, livestock”), German Viech (“animal, beast”), Vieh (“livestock”), German Low German Veeh (“cattle, livestock, property”), Luxembourgish Véi (“cattle”), Vilamovian fi, fī, fii, fiih (“cattle, livestock”), Yiddish פֿי (fi), פֿיך (fikh, “cattle, livestock”), Danish and Faroese fæ (“cattle, livestock”), Icelandic fé (“assets, livestock, money”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk fe (“cattle, livestock”), Swedish fä (“beast, cattle, dolt”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍉 (faihō), 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐌿 (faihu, “possessions, property; riches, wealth; money”); also Latin pecū (“cattle”), Old Prussian pecku (“cattle”), Armenian ասր (asr, “fleece, wool”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬎 (pasu, “livestock”), Bactrian ποσο (poso, “sheep”), Central Kurdish پەز (pez, “sheep”), Northern Kurdish pez (“sheep”), Ossetian фыс (fys, “sheep”), Talysh pəs, пәс (“sheep”), Sanskrit पशु (paśu, “cattle”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun property; possession; tenure. "Laden with rich fee." Spenser.
- noun Reward or compensation for services rendered or to be rendered; especially, payment for professional services, of optional amount, or fixed by custom or laws; charge; pay; perquisite; as, the fees of lawyers and physicians; the fees of office; clerk's fees; sheriff's fees; marriage fees, etc. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate. Shak.
- verb To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.
Etymology [OE. fe, feh, feoh, cattle, property, money, fiet, AS. feoh cattle, property, money; the senses of "property, money," arising from cattle being used in early times as a medium of exchange or payment, property chiefly consisting of cattle; akin to OS. feuh cattle, property, D. vee cattle, OHG. fihu, fehu, G. vieh, Icel. f cattle, property, money, Goth. faíhu, L. pecus cattle, pecunia property. money, Skr. pa cattle, perh. orig., "a fastened or tethered animal," from a root signifying to bind, and perh. akin to E. fang, fair, a.; cf. OF. fie, flu, feu, fleu, fief, F. fief, from German, of the same origin. the sense fief is due to the French. Feud, Fief, Fellow, Pecuniary.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “fee”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details