Enfeuffer

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A person who grants a feudal estate or fief to another in exchange for service or homage
2. One who bestows land on a vassal under feudal tenure, giving the holder a heritable fee
3. Someone who conveys an inheritable estate to a tenant, typically within the feudal system

Etymology: To enfeoff someone was to grant them a fief, land held in exchange for service to a lord. The verb combines the prefix "en-" with "feoff," an older form of "fief," which came into Anglo-Norman French from a Germanic word for livestock and movable wealth. The same root produced the English "fee," so the two words are doublets that split apart on their way into the language. In medieval law, enfeoffment was a formal transfer of land, often carried out through a ceremony in which the giver handed over a symbolic object, such as a twig or a clod of earth, to show that possession had changed hands. The act was recorded in writing, and "feoffment" came to name both the deed and the transfer itself.

Synonyms: invest, endow

Antonyms: disinherit, dispossess