Other forms: forfeits, forfeited, forfeiting, forfeiture
To forfeit something is to lose it as a penalty for what you did or failed to do. You forfeit your deposit by leaving early, your place by not turning up, the match by fielding an ineligible player.
The key idea is that nobody takes it from you — you lose it by your own act, which is what separates forfeiting from being robbed. It is also a noun: the forfeit is the thing lost. In sport a team that cannot play forfeits the game, and the result stands as a defeat without a ball being kicked.
1verbforfeitTo lose something as a penalty for breaking a rule or failing a duty.~73%
“Leave before the year is up and you forfeit the bonus.”
2nounlostThe thing lost as that penalty.~27%
“The forfeit was his entire deposit.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 78 sentences found in the wild and placed 77 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
for-FEIT → pay FOR a deFEAT
The team turns up an hour late. No ball is kicked, and the defeat still goes into the book.
hooks ontodefeat
From Old French forfait, a crime — from forfaire, to transgress, to do beyond what is allowed. The word began as the offence and ended as the price you pay for it.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Medieval Latin
foris factum
Old French
forfait — crime
Middle English
forfait
English, today
forfeit
Built from
From Middle English forfait from ca. 1300, from Old French forfait (“crime”), originally the past participle of forfaire (“to transgress”), and Medieval Latin foris factum. During the 15th century, the sense shifted from the crime to the penalty for the crime.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA