Other forms: fiefs
A fief is land held from a lord in return for service. Grant a fief, hold a fief, the family fief.
The service was usually military, and the whole arrangement is what the word feudal is built on. The figurative use is common and unkind, since calling a department somebody's fief says they run it as private territory.
1nounfiefLand held from a lord in return for service.
“The king granted the loyal knight a fief with three villages and a mill.”
fief is a landholding.
Old French fief comes from Medieval Latin feudum, from a Frankish word for property or cattle.
Proto-Indo-European
*peḱ- (livestock)
Proto-Indo-European
*peku-
Proto-Germanic
*fehu — cattle, sheep
Frankish
*fehu — cattle, livestock
Medieval Latin
fevum
Old French
fief
Middle French
fief
English, today
fief
Built from
From Middle French fief, from Old French fief, from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (whence also Old French fieu, fied), from Old Frankish fehu (“cattle, livestock”), from Proto-Germanic fehu (“cattle, sheep”), from Proto-Indo-European peku-, peḱu- (“sheep”). a doublet of fee and feud and feoff.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA