What does feoff mean?
Feoff is a formal, archaic legal verb meaning “to grant a person possession of a fief or feudal estate.” It is transitive and appears especially in medieval charters, legal histories, and literary texts that imitate such language. A charter might say that an abbot “feoffed” a manor to a tenant, while a modern writer may use the word for its deliberately archaic flavor. The closest ordinary noun is fief: a fief is the estate or right of possession granted, whereas feoff names the act of granting it. Although uncommon in everyday speech, feoff is useful to readers of legal and historical English because it identifies a specific feudal conveyance rather than simply a general gift. The term also preserves a visible link with fief, fee, and feudal, all of which belong to the same historical vocabulary of land held under a lord's authority.
To grant a person possession of a fief or other feudal estate, especially by a feudal conveyance.
"The king feoffed the loyal baron with an estate in the north."
Chiefly historical or legal. It is normally transitive, with the recipient as the direct object.
A feudal grant or conveyance; a feoffment.
"The charter confirmed the feoff of two manors to the abbey."
This noun is rarer than the verb and occurs chiefly in historical and legal contexts.
Used rarely, chiefly when referring to multiple distinct feudal grants or conveyances.
"The archive records several feoffs of land by the northern abbey."
Feoff and fief are homophones: one is the act, the other is the estate granted.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of feoff
Feoff entered Middle English from Anglo-French feoffer, a verb meaning “to enfeoff,” based on the feudal term fef. That term is also the source of fief and fee, while feudal belongs to the same historical word family. The modern spelling reflects the later English form feoff.
Related word forms
How feoff is actually used
Rare, formal, and chiefly historical or legal. As a transitive verb, it takes the recipient as its direct object and can express possession with “of” or “with.”
Easily confused with feoff
A fief is a feudal estate or the right to one, whereas feoff is the act of granting possession of such an estate.