Infeoffs

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To grant or invest someone with a feudal estate or land in exchange for service or allegiance ; to convey ownership or possession of property legally under feudal law ; to entrust a person with a fief or landholding as part of a hierarchical property system
2. The act of transferring rights and possession of land to an individual under a feudal agreement ; the formal delivery of a tenement by a lord to a vassal in return for loyalty or duties ; the process of assigning a property interest within a feudal structure
3. To execute a deed or grant involving the bestowal of land tenure and rights upon another ; to confer legal possession of a feudal estate through a covenant or ceremony ; to formally invest a vassal with land and associated obligations in a medieval landholding system

Etymology: "Infeoffs" is the third-person singular present form of "infeoff," a verb that means to grant someone a fief, or feudal estate, in exchange for service. The base verb is built from "in-" and "feoff," a variant of "fee" that once referred to land held under feudal obligation. Because the word belongs to the specialised language of medieval land law, its history is tied closely to the structure of feudal tenure rather than to everyday speech.