fee definition | Dictionary.com

fee

[fee]

noun, verb, feed, fee⋅ing.

–noun

1.	a charge or payment for professional services: a doctor's fee.

2.	a sum paid or charged for a privilege: an admission fee.

3.	a charge allowed by law for the service of a public officer.

Law.

a.	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).

b.	an inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of the performing of certain services.

c.	a territory held in fee.

5.	a gratuity; tip.

–verb (used with object)

6.	to give a fee to.

7.	Chiefly Scot. to hire; employ.

Origin:
1250–1300; ME < AF; OF fie, var. of fief fief. See feudal

Related forms:

feeless, adjective

Synonyms:
1. stipend, salary, emolument; honorarium.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To fee

fee (fē)

A fixed sum charged, as by an institution or by law, for a privilege: a license fee; tuition fees.
A charge for professional services: a surgeon's fee.
A tip; a gratuity.
Law An inherited or heritable estate in land.
1. In feudal law, an estate in land granted by a lord to his vassal on condition of homage and service. Also called feud², fief.
2. The land so held.

tr.v. feed, fee·ing, fees

To give a tip to.
Scots To hire.

[Middle English fe, from Old English feoh, cattle, goods, money, and from Anglo-Norman fee, fief (from Old French fie, fief, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English feoh); see peku- in Indo-European roots.]

Word History: It is possible to see the idea of money taking hold of the human mind by studying a few words that express the notion of wealth or goods. The word fee now denotes money paid or received for a service rendered. Fee comes from Old English feoh, which has three meanings, all equally ancient: "cattle, livestock"; "goods, possessions, movable property"; "money." The Germanic form behind the Old English is *fehu, which derives by Grimm's Law from Indo-European *peku-, "cattle." *Fehu is therefore a cognate of Latin pecu, "cattle," also a direct descendant of Indo-European *peku-. Latin pecu has several derivatives that ultimately were borrowed into English. One was pecūnia, "money," the source of our word pecuniary. Another was pecūliāris, "pertaining to one's pecūlium or property," the source of our word peculiar. Finally, our word peculator comes from yet a third derivative, pecūlātor, "embezzler of public money, peculator."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Fee

Fee\ (f[=e]), n. [OE. fe, feh, feoh, cattle, property, money, fief, 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. fehu cattle, property, D. vee cattle, OHG. fihu, fehu, G. vieh, Icel. f[=e] cattle, property, money, Goth. fa['i]hu, L. pecus cattle, pecunia property, money, Skr. pa[,c]u 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. [root]249. Cf. Feud, Fief, Fellow, Pecuniary.]

1. property; possession; tenure. "Laden with rich fee." --Spenser.

Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee. --Wordsworth.

2. 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.

3. (Feud. Law) A right to the use of a superior's land, as a stipend for services to be performed; also, the land so held; a fief.

4. (Eng. Law) An estate of inheritance supposed to be held either mediately or immediately from the sovereign, and absolutely vested in the owner.

Note: All the land in England, except the crown land, is of this kind. An absolute fee, or fee simple, is land which a man holds to himself and his heirs forever, who are called tenants in fee simple. In modern writers, by fee is usually meant fee simple. A limited fee may be a qualified or base fee, which ceases with the existence of certain conditions; or a conditional fee, or fee tail, which is limited to particular heirs. --Blackstone.

5. (Amer. Law) An estate of inheritance belonging to the owner, and transmissible to his heirs, absolutely and simply, without condition attached to the tenure.

Fee estate (Eng. Law), land or tenements held in fee in consideration or some acknowledgment or service rendered to the lord.

Fee farm (Law), land held of another in fee, in consideration of an annual rent, without homage, fealty, or any other service than that mentioned in the feoffment; an estate in fee simple, subject to a perpetual rent. --Blackstone.

Fee farm rent (Eng. Law), a perpetual rent reserved upon a conveyance in fee simple.

Fee fund (Scot. Law), certain court dues out of which the clerks and other court officers are paid.

Fee simple (Law), an absolute fee; a fee without conditions or limits.

Buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter. --Shak.

Fee tail (Law), an estate of inheritance, limited and restrained to some particular heirs. --Burill.

Fee

Fee\ (f[=e]), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Feed (f[=e]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Feeing.] To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.

The patient . . . fees the doctor. --Dryden.

There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant feed. --Shak.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : fee

Spanish: honorarios; matrícula,

German: die Gebühr,

Japanese: 料金

More Translations »

fee

1292, from O.Fr. fieu, from M.L. feodum "land or other property whose use is granted in return for service," probably from Frank. *fehu-od "payment-estate," in which the first element is cognate with O.E. feoh "money, property, cattle" (also Ger. Vieh "cattle," Goth. faihu "money, fortune"), from PIE *peku- "cattle" (cf. Skt. pasu, Lith. pekus "cattle;" L. pecu "cattle," pecunia "money, property"); second element similar to O.E. ead "wealth." Sense of "payment for services" first recorded c.1390. Fee-simple is "absolute ownership," as opposed to fee-tail "entailed ownership," inheritance limited to some particular class of heirs (from O.Fr. taillir "to cut, to limit").

Main Entry: fee
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, fief, from Old French fé fief, ultimately from a Germanic word akin to Old High German fehu cattle
1 : an inheritable freehold estate in real property; especially : FEE SIMPLE —compare LEASEHOLD life estate at ESTATE

absolute fee
: a fee granted with no restrictions or limitations on alienability : FEE SIMPLE ABSOLUTE at, FEE SIMPLE

conditional fee
: a fee that is subject to a condition: as a : FEE SIMPLE CONDITIONAL at, FEE SIMPLE b : FEE SIMPLE ON CONDITION SUBSEQUENT at, FEE SIMPLE

defeasible fee
: a fee that is subject to terminating or being terminated

determinable fee
: a defeasible fee that terminates automatically upon the occurrence of a specified event : FEE SIMPLE DETERMINABLE at, FEE SIMPLE

fee patent
: a fee simple absolute that is granted by a patent from the U.S. government; also : a patent that grants a fee simple absolute fee patent had never been issued —U.S. Code>
NOTE: Allotments of parcels of land in reservations are held in private ownership by fee patents.

fee tail
: a fee which is granted to an individual and to that individual's descendants, which is subject to a reversion or a remainder if a tenant in tail dies with no lineal descendants, and which is not freely alienable —see also ENTAIL De Donis Conditionalibus in the IMPORTANT LAWS section —compare fee simple conditional at FEE SIMPLE
NOTE: The fee tail developed out of the fee simple conditional as a means to ensure that property would remain intact and in the family. Instead of giving the grantee a fee simple absolute once he or she has a child, which the grantee could then alienate (as by selling), the fee tail creates a future interest in the descendants which prevents the grantee and the descendants from alienating the property. A fee tail is created by a conveyance to the grantee and to the heirs of the grantee's body. In most jurisdictions, the fee tail is not recognized.
2 : a fixed amount or percentage charged; especially : a sum paid or charged for a service fees>

contingency fee
: a fee for the services of a lawyer paid upon successful completion of the services and usually calculated as a percentage of the gain obtained for the client called also contingency contingent fee —compare CHAMPERTY, MAINTENANCE

fil·ing fee
: a fee charged for the filing of a document
NOTE: Filing fees are ordinarily charged in civil matters with the filing of the complaint.

jury fee
: a fee that is assessed in some courts as part of the cost of a civil jury trial

orig·i·na·tion fee
: a fee charged by a lender for the preparation and processing of a loan—in fee : under title that creates a fee

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