Infeudating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Granting land or an estate to someone in return for feudal service and loyalty
2. Bestowing a fief on a vassal, binding that person to a lord through feudal tenure
3. Investing a person with landed property held under feudal obligations to a superior

Etymology: "Infeudate" is a verb meaning to grant someone a fief, the landed estate held in exchange for service in medieval Europe. It is formed from the prefix "in-" and "fief," which comes from Medieval Latin "feudum," probably from a Frankish word meaning roughly "cattle-wealth," since livestock was once a common measure of property. To infeudate someone was to put them in possession of land under that feudal obligation. The same root gave English two unrelated words that are easy to confuse. The quarrel sense of "feud" comes from Old French "faide," from a Germanic word for enmity, and has no connection to the land-holding system. The two only look alike because they reached English along separate routes.

Synonyms: enfeoffing