fee

(fē)

noun

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

transitive verb feed feed, fee·ing, fees

1. To give a tip to.
2. Scots To hire.

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.”