fee

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A fixed sum charged, as by an institution or by law, for a privilege: a license fee; tuition fees.
2. n. A charge for professional services: a surgeon's fee.
3. n. A tip; a gratuity.
4. n. Law An inherited or heritable estate in land.
5. n. In feudal law, an estate in land granted by a lord to his vassal on condition of homage and service. Also called feud², fief.
6. n. The land so held.
7. v. To give a tip to.
8. v. Scots To hire.
9. idiom. in fee Law In absolute and legal possession.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Cattle; live stock, especially considered as the basis of wealth.
2. n. Property; estate.
3. n. Money paid or bestowed; payment; emolument.
4. n. Specifically A reward or compensation for services; recompense; in Scotland, wages.
5. n. In particular— A reward fixed by law for the services of a public officer: as, a sheriff's fee for execution.
6. n. A reward for professional services: as, a lawyer's fee; a clergyman's marriage fee.
7. n. A customary gratuity: as, a waiter's fee.
8. n. A sum paid for a privilege: as, an entrance fee to a circus; an initiation fee to a club.
9. To pay a fee to; reward for services past or to come.
10. To hire or bribe; engage or employ the services of.
11. To cause to engage with a person for domestic or farm service: as, a man fees his son to a farmer.
12. n. An estate in land, of indefinite duration, granted by and held of a superior lord, in whom the ultimate title resides, on condition of performing some service in return. See feud. In this, which is its original sense, it implies the idea of reward for service or allegiance, and was used in contradistinction to estates in allodium, or entire property, which were generally small allotments held free of any obligation.
13. n. An estate of inheritance; an estate in land belonging to the owner and his heirs and assigns forever. In the latter case it is more specifically termed a fee simple. (See conditional fee , below.) The fee is the highest and most extensive interest that a person can have in lands. In this sense the king might have a fee, but not in the sense of def. 1. After the abolition of the feudal system the word continued to be used of real property; and although in the United States generally land is held in allodium, the private ownership, if subject to no paramount right except that of eminent domain vested in the State, is termed the fee. The word when unqualified may or may not mean an absolute or unqualified fee, or fee simple.
14. n. Estate in general; property; possession; ownership.
15. n. A fee limited to particular heirs or a particular class of heirs, under the common-law rule that, on the donee's once having such heirs, the estate became absolute for all purposes of alienation, on the ground that a condition once performed was at an end. (See entail.) To designate this kind of conditional fee at the common law, the more appropriate phrase is fee simple conditional. This evasion of the intent of donors to reserve a reversion on a failure of heirs was put an end to by a statute known as De Donis, which enacted that the will of the donor should be observed, and that on the failure of heirs the property should revert to the donor. The estate of the donee under this statute was termed a fee tail. See tail, adjective
16. n. Later, the term conditional fee was applied to the estate of a mortgagee of land, under a mortgage in the usual form, which was regarded as vesting the fee in the mortgagee subject to its being divested by performance of the condition, namely payment.
17. n. In hunting, certain portions of the dead animal which were distributed among the huntsmen according to definite regulations.

Wiktionary

1. n. obsolete Cattle; livestock, especially considered as the basis of wealth.
2. n. obsolete Property; owndom; estate.
3. n. obsolete Money paid or bestowed; payment; emolument.
4. n. A monetary payment charged for professional services.
5. n. law An estate of inheritance in land, either absolute and without limitation to any particular class of heirs (fee simple) or limited to a particular class of heirs (fee tail).
6. n. law An inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of the performing of certain services.
7. v. To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. property; possession; tenure.
2. n. Reward or compensation for services rendered or to be rendered; especially, payment for professional services, of optional amount, or fixed by custom or laws; charge; pay; perquisite.
3. n. (Feud. Law) A right to the use of a superior's land, as a stipend for services to be performed; also, the land so held; a fief.
4. n. (Eng. Law) An estate of inheritance supposed to be held either mediately or immediately from the sovereign, and absolutely vested in the owner.
5. n. (Amer. Law) An estate of inheritance belonging to the owner, and transmissible to his heirs, absolutely and simply, without condition attached to the tenure.
6. v. To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. give a tip or gratuity to in return for a service, beyond the compensation agreed on
2. n. a fixed charge for a privilege or for professional services
3. n. an interest in land capable of being inherited