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feudal

UK/ˈfjuːdəl/US/ˈfju.dəl/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,855 of 15,258leans written

Feudal describes a system where land was held in return for service. The feudal system, feudal obligations, a feudal lord.

Historians dislike the word, since what it describes varied so much from place to place that a single system is hard to defend. In loose modern use, calling a workplace feudal means power runs by personal loyalty rather than by rules.

Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

Definitions of feudal

  1. 1adjectivefeudalDescribing a system where land was held in return for service.C1

    “Peasants in feudal Europe could not leave their lord's estate without his permission.”

feudal is a system.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin feodalis comes from feodum, a fief, from a Frankish word meaning cattle or property.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *peḱ- (livestock)

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *fehu — cattle

  3. Frankish

    *fehu — cattle, owndom, property, fee

  4. Medieval Latin

    feodalis

  5. Old French

    feodal

  6. English, today

    feudal

Built from

  • fevum · Latin — fief, fee

From Old French feodal, from Medieval Latin feodalis, from feodum, feudum, fevum (“fief, fee”), from Frankish fehu (“cattle, owndom, property, fee”), from Proto-Germanic fehu (“cattle”). by surface analysis, feud + -al. More at fee.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in History & Eras

Practise this word

feudal in the wild

  • Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto.

    Feudal land tenure in England

  • The tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army.

    Tenant-in-chief

  • A demesne or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support.

    Demesne

  • Although being historically referred to as feudal barons, the term feudal is now incorrect.

    Baronage of Scotland

  • The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch.

    Overlord

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the fevum family

fee

feudal — used about once every 16,706 pages · #12,855 · point at the bar for the others

  • foe
  • feud