Enfeoff

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɛnˈfɛf/

Definitions

1. To bestow land or property along with its rights and duties within a feudal framework
2. To confer an estate to an individual, involving specific feudal responsibilities and privileges
3. To transfer ownership of land including its feudal obligations to another person

Etymology: Before "enfeoff" meant anything to a lawyer, its root was a plain word for livestock. The Proto-Indo-European root *peḱu- denoted cattle or sheep, and through Germanic and Frankish channels it became the source of the French "fief", an estate held by a person in return for military service to a superior. Land was the medieval form of wealth, and a fief was a grant of it bound to obligations. Medieval French built "enfeffer" by adding the prefix "en-", meaning "in" or "into", to "fief". To enfeoff someone was to put them into possession of such a holding. English borrowed the verb in the Late Middle English period, in forms such as "enfeffen" and "enfeoffen", and used it for granting property or rights under the feudal system. The verb still appears in legal writing, where it is the formal term for transferring a freehold estate. The English word is analysable as "en-" plus "feoff", the English form of "fief".

Synonyms: invest, grant, assign