What does feu mean?
Feu is a term from Scots law denoting a perpetual form of land tenure in which a tenant — technically called a vassal — held land from a superior in return for a small fixed annual payment known as a feu duty. Unlike an ordinary lease, a feu lasted indefinitely and could be inherited or sold, making the holder functionally an owner subject to that nominal rent. Introduced into Scotland in the medieval period as a way of raising revenue without outright sale, feu became the dominant means of conveying property there for centuries, and many Scottish homes were built on feued ground. The system was swept away by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, which took effect in 2004, extinguishing both feudal superiority and feu duties. Today the word survives chiefly in legal history, old title deeds, and Scottish place-related usage, a reminder of how deeply feudal structures once shaped everyday landownership.
nounA perpetual lease of land in Scotland, granted in return for a fixed annual payment (called a feu duty), effectively giving the tenant permanent ownership-like rights subject to the payment. The term also denotes the piece of land so held.
- A perpetual lease of land in Scotland held in return for a fixed annual payment (a feu duty).
- The land held under such a tenure.
"The croft had been held on a feu from the laird since the eighteenth century."
"The family had paid feu duties on their Edinburgh townhouse for over two hundred years."
"Under the Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act 2000, all remaining feu duties were extinguished in Scotland."
Regular plural; used when referring to multiple such tenures or parcels of land.
"The estate's records listed dozens of feus granted to tenant farmers over the centuries."
In Scotland you didn't buy your land outright for centuries — you 'held it in feu,' paying a tiny yearly fee to a laird forever, a system that survived until 2004.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of feu
Feu comes from Middle English and Older Scots, borrowed from Old French 'feu' meaning fief or landed estate, which itself derives from Medieval Latin 'feudum' — the root of 'feudal', 'fee', and 'fief'. These terms trace back to Frankish origins relating to property granted in return for service. The Scottish legal sense of a heritable, perpetually renewable land grant developed in the medieval period and remained part of Scots law until its abolition in 2004.
Related word forms
How feu is actually used
The word belongs chiefly to Scots law and historical usage. Since the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 came into force in 2004, feu duties no longer exist, so the term now appears mainly in legal history and property records. A person holding land in feu was known as a 'vassal', while the granter was the 'superior'.
Easily confused with feu
A fief was a medieval continental European grant of land held in exchange for service, whereas a feu is specifically the Scottish form of perpetual land tenure paying a fixed annual rent.
"Few" means a small number of things; "feu" is a Scottish legal term for a perpetual land tenure or the land held under it.