enfeoff
/ɛnˈfɛf/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.03 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɛnˈfɛf/
- British English: /ɛnˈfɛf/
Usage
Inflected Forms
enfeoffs (present, singular)
enfeoffes (obsolete, present)
enfeoffing (participle, present)
enfeoffed (participle, past)
enfeoffed (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
enfeoffed (first person, past)
enfeoffest (archaic, present)
enfeoffed (past, second person)
enfeoffedst (archaic, past)
enfeoffeth (archaic, present)