enfeoff
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: law
Etymology: From Late Middle English enfeffen, enfeoffen (“to grant (property, rights, etc.) under the feudal system”) [and other forms], from Old French enfeffer, enfieffer (compare Anglo-Latin infeoffāre, Anglo-Norman enfeoffer), from en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’) + fief (“estate held by a person on condition of providing military service to a superior”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peḱu- (“livestock, especially sheep or cattle”)). The English word is analysable as en- + feoff.
Base: feoff
Affixes: en-
Inflected forms:
form: enfeoffs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: enfeoffes
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
present
singular
third-person
form: enfeoffing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: enfeoffest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: enfeoffedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: enfeoffs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: enfeoffeth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: enfeoff
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: enfeoffing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: enfeoffed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: infeff
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: infeft
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: infeoff
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: To transfer a fief to, to endow with a fief; to put (a person) in legal possession of a freehold interest.
pos: verb
tags: historical
transitive
examples: Suppose a man bargains to enfeoff me, as in our case here, and he afterwards enfeoffs another, and then he re-enters [i.e. on the first feoffee] and enfeoffs me, and the other ousts me. Now here the action of covenant may not be brought, because he has at last enfeoffed me according to his covenant, and yet the deceit remains upon which an action may be based. Wherefore it does not always follow that where there is a covenant the action of deceit will not lie.
I have infeffed Richarde Pygot, sarjeaunt of the lawe, John Norton, knyght, John Pygott of Rypon, gentilman, and Sir Thomas Nobull, prest, in lands and tenements within the fraunchese of Rypon, [...]
And all this he [Pope Pius V] doth to enfeoff the pope with that fulness of power wherunto he entitleth Peter.
If a man hath iſſue two Daughters and grant a Rent charge out of his land to one of them and dyeth the Rent ſhall be apportioned, and if the Grantee in this caſe enfeoffeth another of her part of the land, yet the moity of the Rent remaineth iſſuing out of her ſiſters part, becauſe the part of the Grantee in the land by the diſcent was diſcharged of the Rent.
[I]n February 1648, in a letter to [Thomas] Fairfax's secretary, [Robert] Overton expresses pleasure that the king's servants have been removed and suggests that it would 'prove a happy privation if the Father would please to dispossess him of three transitory kingdoms to infeoff him in an eternal one'.
And if a Man doth bargain with another to enfeoff him of certain Lands, and afterwards he enfeoffeth another Man, he with whom he made the Bargain, ſhall have a Writ of Diſceit.
There paſſes this Seal alſo a Precept, which is called the Fourth Precept, directed to a Sheriff in that Part, for infefting in Lands holden of a ſubject Superior, after the three Precepts are run againſt him.
Estate ſimple, called alſo fee ſimple, is where a man by deed indented, enfeoffes another in fee, reſerving to him and his heirs a yearly rent; with this proviſo, that if the rent be behind, &c., it ſhall be lawful for the feoffer and his heirs, to enter.
The deed by which a fee is brought into existence, or by which the superior authorizes a person to hold lands of him as his vassal, and entitles the vassal to be put in personal possession of such lands, is called a Feu-charter. It consists in general of the following clauses. [...] 10. Precept of Sasine, by which the superior empowers the vassal to be infeft.
[T]he Zhou conquerors had attempted to control their vast new territories through "enfeoffing" relatives and allies in walled towns throughout their kingdom.
Hereditary fiefs meant that the king could not refuse to enfeoff a legitimate, able-bodied heir, but renewal was still required for the successor to exercise any rights or functions associated with the fief.
gloss: To give up completely; to surrender, to yield.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: [M]ore than one well-wisher who observed Ethelberta from afar feared that it might some day come to be said of her that she had / Enfeoffed herself to popularity: / That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, / They surfeited with honey, and began / To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little / More than a little is by much too much.
Le Matin will be a newspaper which will not have any political opinions, which will not be enfeoffed to any bank, which will not sell its patronage to any business; it will be a newspaper giving news information, telegraphic, universal and true.
Related words: fee
feoff
feoffee
feoffer
feoffor
feofor
feoffment
fief
refeoff
Derived words: enfeoffment
Translations: