fedoa 
great North American godwit, Limosa fedoa. 
Linnams, 1766. (c) [cop.] A generic name of 
the stone-plovers : same as (Edicnemits. W. E. 
Leach, 1816. (d) [cap."] A generic name of the 
godwits: same as Limosa. Stephens, 1824. 
fee 1 (fe), H. [< ME. fee, fe, earlier feh, feoh, 
cattle, property, money, money paid, tribute, 
a fee, < AS. feoh (contr. gen. feds, dat. fed), 
neut., cattle, property, money, = OS. fehu = 
OFries. fia = D.vee = LG. fee = OHG. fihu, fehu, 
MHG. vihe, G. rieh, attle, = Icel. fe, cattle, 
property, money, = Sw. fit = Dan. fa, cattle, 
beast, = Goth, faihu, neut., cattle, property, 
= L. pecus (pecu-), neut., cattle, money, cf. pe- 
cus (pecor-), neut., cattle, esp. small cattle, a 
flock, pecus (pecud-), f., a single head of cattle, 
esp. of small cattle, a sheep, etc. (> peculium, 
property in cattle, private property, what is 
one's own, pecunia, property, money : see pecu- 
liar, peculate, pecuniary, etc.), = Ski. pacu, cat- 
tle (a single head or a herd), a domestic ani- 
mal, < -^ "pay, fasten, bind, = Teut. J *fah, 
'fanh, in fang, etc. : see fang, fay 1 , fair*.] If. 
Cattle ; live stock, especially considered as the 
basis of wealth. 
Wythe outen wyfe and chyld, 
Or hyrdes [keepers] that kepe thare fee. 
York Plays, p. 71. 
I ryde aftyre this wilde/e; 
My raches rynnys at my devyse. 
Thomas of Ersseldoune (Child's Ballads, I. 100). 
2t. Property; estate. 
Ferly flayed that folk that in those fees lenged. 
Alliterative Poemi (ed. Morris), ii. 980. 
8f. Money paid or bestowed ; payment; emolu- 
ment. 
The! thanked hym hertely, anil seide that the! wolde it 
not, for in tyme comynge thei resceve his yeftes and take 
of hym other fee. Merlin (E. E. T. 8.), ii. 224. 
For he married me for love, 
But I married him tor fee. 
The Laird of Wariitoun (Child's Ballads, III. 109). 
Specifically 4. A reward or compensation for 
services ; recompense ; in Scotland, wages. 
And every yere I wyll the gyve 
Twenty inarke to thy fee. 
Lytell Geste of Robyn llode (Child's Ballads, V. 71). 
Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute, 
Not as afee. Shale., M. of V., iv. 1. 
And for a nierk o' m&irfee 
Dinna stan' wi' him. Scotch song. 
In particular (<i) A reward fixed by law for the services 
of a public officer : as, a sheriff's fee for execution. 
A law has recently been passed remitting all fees upon 
navigation, although a round-about system has been 
adopted, by which the fee* are charged against the Trea- 
sury. E. Schuyler, Amer. Diplomacy, p. 76. 
(b) A reward for professional services : as, a lawyer's/ee; 
a clergyman's marriage fee. 
But that was pretie of a certaine sorrie man of law, that 
gaue his Client but bad councell, and yet found fault with 
his fee, and said : my fee, good frend, hath deserued bet- 
ter cousel. Puttenham, Arte of Eng. Poesie, p. 143. 
And in this state she [Mab] gallops night by night . . . 
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees. 
Shak., R. and 3., i. 4. 
(c) A customary gratuity : as, a waiter's fee. 
I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little 
orphan who serves me as a handmaid. 
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, xxxi. 
Ay, here 's a deer whose skin 's a keeper's fee. 
Shak., 8 Hen. VI., ill. 1. 
5. A sum paid for a privilege: as, an entrance 
fee to a circus; an initiation fee to a club. 
[Fee usually implies the idea of specific sums for specific 
acts of service, ns distinguished from salary, or compen- 
sation by time of service.] Consular fees. See consu- 
lar. Retaining fee, the fee of a lawyer on engaging in 
a particular cause, sometimes applied in payment of the 
first services actually rendered, and sometimes regarded 
as a payment additional to charges for specific services, 
and given for the purpose of securing the right to call upon 
him at any time to commence such services, or to pledge 
him not to accept employment from the adverse party, or 
for both purposes. 
fee 1 (fe), v. t. [< /eel, .] i. TO pay a fee to; 
reward for services past or to come. Hence 
2. To hire or bribe; engage or employ the ser- 
vices of. 
Fee him, father, fee him. Scotch tiong. 
She hath an usher, and a waiting gentlewoman, 
A page, a coachman ; these tire feed said feed, 
And yet, for all that, will be prating. 
Fletcher (and another), Noble Gentleman. 
He hired an auld horse, and fee'd an auld man, 
To carry her back to Northumberland. 
The Promnfs Dochter (Child's Ballads, IV. 293). 
3. To cause to engage with a person for do- 
mestic or farm service : as, a man fees his son 
to a farmer. [Scotch.] 
fee 2 (fe), n. [< ME. fe, pi. fees, feez, an estate 
held in trust or under conditions, a feud, as- 
similated in form to fe, fee, property, etc. 
2168 
(with which it is ult. identical), < OF. fied, Jie, 
feu, var. of fieu, later fief, > E. fief (which does 
not seem to occur in ME. : see feoff), < ML. 
feudum, property held in fee: see fief, feoff, 
/eud 2 .] 1. An estate in land, of indefinite dura- 
tion, granted by and held of a superior lord, in 
whom the ultimate title resides, on condition 
of performing some service in return. See 
feud 2 . In this, which is its original sense, it implies the 
idea of reward for service or allegiance, ami was used in 
contradistinction to estates in allodium, or entire prop- 
erty, which were generally small allotments held free of 
any obligation. 
The tenure of lands is altogether grounded on military 
laws, and held as &fee under princes. 
Hooker, Eccles. Polity, v. 80. 
2. An estate of inheritance; an estate in land 
belonging to the owner and his heirs and assigns 
forever. In the latter case it is more specifically termed 
a fee simple. (See conditional fee (b), below.) The fee is 
the highest and most extensive interest that a person can 
have in lands. In this sense the king might have a fee, 
but not in the sense of def. 1. After the abolition of the 
feudal system the word continued to be used of real prop- 
erty : and although in the United States generally land is 
held in allodium, the private ownership, if subject to no 
paramount right except that of eminent domain vested 
in the State, is termed the fee. The word when unqualified 
may or may not mean an absolute or unqualified fee, or 
fee simple. 
3. Estate in general; property; possession; 
ownership. 
Those Ladies, which thou sawest late, 
Are Venus Damzels, all within her/, 
But differing in honour and degree. 
Spenser, F. Q., VI. x. 21. 
Once did she [Venice] hold the gorgeous East in fee, 
And was the safeguard of the West. 
Wordsieorth, Extinction of the Venetian Republic. 
My lute and I are lords of more 
Than thrice this kingdom's fee. 
Lowell, Singing Leaves. 
Base fee, a qualified fee ; a freehold estate of inheritance 
to which a qualification is annexed, so that it must ter- 
minate whenever the qualification is at an end; more 
specifically, in the English law of settlements, the estate 
created by absolute alienation by a tenant in tail alone 
(see entail), which, being made without the consent of the 
protector, does not bar remaindermen or reversioners, but 
only the grantor's own issue, and hence is liable to be de- 
feated by the failure of such issue. 
The curious kind of estate created by the conveyance in 
fee simple of a tenant in tail not in possession, without 
the concurrence of the owners of estates preceding his 
own, is called a base fee. F. Pollock, Land Laws, p. 108. 
Conditional fee. (a) Any fee granted upon condition. 
(b) A fee limited to particular heirs or a particular class 
of heirs, under the common-law rule that, on the donee's 
once having such heirs, the estate became absolute for all 
purposes of alienation, on the ground that a condition 
once performed was at an end. (See entail.) To designate 
this kind of conditional fee at the common law, the more 
appropriate phrase is fee simple conditional. This evasion 
of the intent of donors to reserve a reversion on a failure 
of heirs was put an end to by a statute known as De Donis, 
which enacted that the will of the donor should be ob- 
served, and that on the failure of heirs the property should 
revert to the donor. The estate of the donee under this 
statute was termed a fee tail. See tail?, a. (c) Later, the 
term conditional fee was applied to the estate of a mort- 
gagee of land, under a mortgage in the usual form, which 
was regarded as vesting the fee in the mortgagee subject 
to its being divested by performance of the condition, 
namely payment. Determinable fee, a fee determin- 
able by a condition or a conditional limitation ; more 
specifically, a fee created by a limitation to the grantee 
and his heirs till the happening of a future event which 
may or may not happen, as a gift to A and his heirs, and 
if A dies without issue, then to another. Fee simple, 
fee simple absolute, a fee that is not qualified. See def. 
2. Fee tall. See conditional fee (b). Great fee, the 
holding of a tenant of the crown. 
By the feudal law, a great fee or great lordship, which 
are convertible terms, was the highest order of possession, 
and was held directly from the crown. 
Baints, Hist. Lancashire, II. 14. 
In his demain as of fee. See demain. Limited fee, 
a determinable fee ; more specifically, a fee determinable 
by a conditional limitation. Plowman's fee, peasant 
tenure; the custom by which lands descended to all the 
sons of the tenant in equal shares, with, however, some 
privilege or birthright in favor of the elder or younger 
son : a rule of descent which under the feudal system gave 
way to primogeniture. 
The strict English primogeniture as applied to the rus- 
tic holdings, sometimes called fiefs de roturier or "plough- 
man's fee. Encyc. Brit., XIX. 735. 
Qualified fee, a base fee ; a freehold estate of inheritance 
to which a qualification is annexed, so that it must termi- 
nate whenever the qualification is at an end ; more spe- 
cifically, the estate created by a limitation to the grantee 
and the heirs of an ancestor of his in the paternal line 
whose heir he also is, as a gift to B and the heirs of A, his 
father. 
feeable (fe'a-bl), a - [Early mod. E. also/enftfe; 
< fee + -able.'] Capable of being feed ; capable 
of being hired or bribed. 
feeble (fe'bl), a. and n. [< ME. feble, rarely 
fifble, febul, < AF. feble, OF. feble, 'feuble, foible 
(> E. foible), etc.; earlier OF.flebe,fieuble,floi- 
ble, etc., F.faible = Pr. feble, fible,freble = Sp. 
feble = Pg. febre = It. fievole, weak, feeble, < 
feebly 
~L.flcliilis, tearful, mournful, lamentable, <fiere, 
weep, akin tofiuere, flow: see fluent. For the 
development of meaning, cf. MHG. mach, mis- 
erable, pitiable, weak, G. schwach, weak; Goth. 
wainags, lamentable, pitiable, unhappy, miser- 
able ; OHG. weneg, weinag, G. tcenig, little, few.] 
1. a. If. Miserable; poor; common; mean. 
Vp an seli asse he rod, and in feble clothes also. 
He ne com with no gret nobleie, so as thou dost nou 
With riche clothes. Holy Rood (E. E. T. S.), p. 54. 
2. Lacking strength ; lacking capacity for for- 
cible action or resistance ; weak ; specifically, 
reduced to a state of weakness, as by sickness 
or ago. 
Zee sclmlle undirstonde that before the Chirche of the 
Sepulcre is the Cytee more feble than in ony othere partie. 
Mandeville, Travels, p. 80. 
Like rich hangings in a homely house, 
So was his will in his o\A feeble body. 
Shak., 2 Hen. VI., v. 3. 
This way and that the feeble stem is driven, 
Weak to sustain the storms and injuries of heaven. 
Dryden, Flower and Leaf, 1. 689. 
Forward she started with a happy cry, 
And laid the feeble infant in his arms. 
Tennyson, Enoch Arden. 
3. Wanting in force exerted, whether of action 
or resistance ; lacking in intensity, vividness, 
energy, or efficiency ; faint: as, a. feeble voice; 
a, feeble light ; feeble thinking; & feeble argu- 
ment or poem. 
Thowe servyst me with febulle chere ; 
To hym thyu hart wolte fully enclyne. 
Political Poems, etc. (ed. Furuivall), p. 166. 
Why should we suppose that conscientious motives, fee- 
Me as they are constantly found to be in a good cause, 
should be omnipotent lor evil? 
Macaulay, Hallarn's Const. Hist. 
A feeble faith I would not shake. 
Whittier, Questions of Life. 
In politics the mightiest events often come from the 
feeblest beginnings, BO the most devastating mischiefs may 
be due to errors of judgment that were hardly censurable. 
Gladstone, Nineteenth Century, XXI. 923. 
4. Exhibiting or indicating weakness: as, & fee- 
ble appearance. = S7n. 2. Sickly, languishing, ener- 
vated, frail, drooping. 
n.t . [Cf. F. faible, the weak part, as of a 
sword, etc.] 1. A feeble person. 
It is an oncomely couple bi Cryst, as me thinketh, 
To jyuen a gouge wenche to an o\Ae feble. 
Piers Plowman (B), Ix. 161. 
2. Weakness; feebleness. 
[He] ffainted torfebull, and fele to the ground 
In a swyme & a swogb, as he swelt wold. 
Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 3550. 
3. Same as foible, 1. 
feeblet (fe'bl), v. [< ME./eWen, make feeble, 
become feeble, < OF. febleier, febloier (also 
afebleier, afebloier), make feeble, < feble, fee- 
ble : see feeble, a. Cf. enfeeble.] I. trans. To 
weaken; enfeeble. 
Shall that victorious hand \>efeebled here, 
That in your chambers gave you chastisement '.' 
Skat., K. John, v. 2. 
Tis true, you are old taaafeebled; 
Would you were young again, and in full vigour ! 
Fletcher, Wildgoose Chase, i. 3. 
H. intrans. To grow faint or weak. 
Moche folk of here fon fel algate newe, 
& here men feebled fast & faileden of here mete. 
William of Palerne (E. E. T. S.), 1. 2659. 
All failit there forse, feblit there herttes, 
The batell on backe was borne to the se. 
Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 5958. 
feeble-minded (fe'bl-mJn'ded), a. Weak in 
mind, (a) Wanting firmness or constancy ; irresolute. 
Comfort the feebleminded. 1 Thes. v. 14. 
(6) Lacking intelligence ; idiotic. 
feeble-mindedness (fe'bl-min'ded-nes), . 
The state of being feeble-minded, 
feebleness (fe'bl-nes), n. [< ME. febelnes, fe- 
bulnessc, < feble, febul, feeble, -f -ness.'] The 
quality or condition of being feeble, in any 
sense of that word ; weakness. 
Our Savior Crist, beryng hys Croat, for veryfebylnesse fell 
ther to the grounde vnder nethe Crosse. 
Torkington, Diarie of Eng. Travel!, p. 39. 
He [Hamlet] is the victim not so much of feebleness of 
will as of an intellectual indifference that hinders the 
will from working long in any one direction. 
Lowell, Among my Books, 1st ser., p. 215. 
feeblisht, v. t. [< feeble + -islft, after enfee- 
blish.] To enfeeble. 
All Christendome was sore decayed and feeblinhed by 
occasion of the warres betweene England and France. 
Hakluyt's Voyages, II. 68. 
feebly (fe'bli), adv. In a feeble manner ; weak- 
ly; faintly; without strength. 
Thy gentle numbers feebly creep. 
Dryden, Mac Flecknoe. 
