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Glite Dictionary
fee tail

fee tail

9.9
A way of owning land that passes only to family and cannot be sold
  • noun
  • /fi teɪl/
  • Archaic
translation icon : herencia restringida
  • Many medieval aristocrats held their lands in fee tail to keep them within the family.

Examples

  • Under a fee tail, the property must pass to the owner's direct descendants.

  • The system of fee tail restricted the sale of large estates to outsiders.

  • Many medieval aristocrats held their lands in fee tail to keep them within the family.

  • A fee tail restricts the transfer of land.

  • What is a fee tail?

  • The system of fee tail restricted the sale of large estates to outsiders.

  • Under a fee tail, the property must pass to the owner's direct descendants.

Synonyms

to fee-tail
vsfee tail
  • Archaic
9.9

To limit who can inherit land so it stays in one family

is the actual legal estate limited to particular heirs rather than the restricting action

Surface Forms

fee tail singular
fee tails plural

Morphology

fee + tail

This is a specialist legal term whose meaning ('an inheritable estate limited to a particular line of heirs') is not transparently derivable from the common senses of 'fee' and 'tail'. The constituent 'tail' does not signal the legal restriction to a B1 learner, and the phrase is archaic/technical rather than following an obvious compositional pattern, so learners who only know the parts would not predict the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Fee tail may come from old law words where fee meant a piece of land and tail (from a word for 'cut' or 'limited') gave the land a kind of 'tail' that kept it with one family. So fee tail means property that cannot be 'sold or given away' freely but must 'pass to your children' or other family heirs.