Fee1, n.
n. [Scot. fē, fee, fēy, fie, A-S. feoh, cattle: cattle being used in early times as a medium of exchange or payment, the word came to signify money, value, price, hire, reward, fee, and, as property chiefly consisted of cattle, goods, property, wealth, riches; O. Sax. fehu, fe, cattle, money, Goth. faihu, goods, money, Lombard. fiu, fio, property, O. H. Ger. fihu, beast, herd, flock, money, N. H. Ger. vieh, cattle, beast, animal, D. vee, Sw. & Dan. fä, cattle, Icel. fe, cattle, money, allied to Gr. πῶν, flock, and Lat. pecus, cattle, pecunia, property, money, from pecus: O. Fr. fie, fiu, feu, fieu, fief, fied, Pr. feu, It. fio.]
Sense 1. Property; possession; control. “Laden with rich fee.” Spenser.
Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee. Wordsworth.
Sense 2. Reward for services rendered or to be rendered; especially, payment for professional services, of optional amount, or fixed by custom or law; charge; pay; as, the fees of lawyers and physicians; the fees of office; clerk’s fees; sheriff’s fees; marriage fees, &c.
To plead for love deserves more fee than hate. Shak.
Sense 3. (Feud. Law.) A right to the use of a superior’s land, as a stipend for services to be performed; the land so held; a fief.
Sense 4. (Eng. Law.) An estate of inheritance supposed to be held either mediately or immediately from the sovereign.
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.
Sense 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.