Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The estate or domain of a feudal lord.
  • noun An organization or department over which one dominant person or group exercises control.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The estate controlled by a feudal lord; a fief.
  • noun by extension Any organization in the control of a dominant individual. Primarily used with a critical or pejorative connotation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the domain controlled by a feudal lord
  • noun an organization that is controlled by a dominant person or group

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Mayor Daley thinks that his fiefdom is exempt from the Founding documents.

    Supreme Court Sets Date For Landmark Gun-Rights Case

  • Mayor Daley thinks that his fiefdom is exempt from the Founding documents.

    Supreme Court Sets Date For Landmark Gun-Rights Case

  • Like "banana republic," the word fiefdom is not meant to be friendly, and, by the way, is quite inaccurate when applied to Connecticut towns.

    News from www.rep-am.com

  • His fiefdom was the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, hers the Virginia medical examiner's system.

    Predator

  • Mayawati makes no secret of the fact that she would like to cross the Yamuna River, which separates her fiefdom from the national capital in New Delhi, to be elected the first Dalit prime minister.

    NPR Topics: News

  • Brown's attitude is typical of this, and I live in his "fiefdom"!

    Vote Labour or Else...

  • Scotland is what Germans call Amigoland the kind of fiefdom the CSU has made Bavaria by hook and by crook

    How does Labour Know Postal Vote Results?

  • It was described to the engineer, and he was the de-facto explainer for the group, but seriously Childs was working for the gov't too long and had too many bad habits of "fiefdom" creation that are everywhere in city and state organizations.

    Slashdot: Your Rights Online

  • Singh, a Lok Sabha member, has accused Kumar of overlooking genuine party workers and treating the party as his "fiefdom".

    The Economic Times

  • Consolidation of the two cities has been blocked in the past because of "fiefdom" protection.

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