Feorm

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Food and supplies offered to a guest or traveller as hospitality ; a payment in produce or goods rendered to a lord as rent
2. Provisions supplied to visitors or retainers as a form of hospitality ; a tribute of food or goods owed to a feudal landlord
3. The victuals provided to someone as hospitable care ; the render of produce or goods that a tenant owed to an overlord as rent

Etymology: The Old English "feorm" meant food and provision rather than land. It referred to supplies, especially the food a king or lord was entitled to receive from his lands, and it could also mean a feast. Its ultimate source is uncertain: it may come from a Proto-Germanic word for "means of living" or "life force," which would tie it to the Old English "feorh," meaning "life," or it may be borrowed from Latin "firmus," meaning "solid" or "secure." The sense of "rent" and "lease" arrived through Anglo-Norman "ferme," which was used for fixed payments made to hold land. Over time, the word narrowed from the whole system of provisions and dues to the land that produced them, and eventually to the holding itself. Modern English "farm" is the descendant of this, and the older spelling "feorm" survives mainly in Old English texts and in scholarly discussion of the word's history.