The patient . . . fees the doctor. --Dryden.
There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a
servant feed. --Shak.
Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee.
--Wordsworth.
2. 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; as, the fees of lawyers and physicians;
the fees of office; clerk's fees; sheriff's fees; marriage
fees, etc.
To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
--Shak.
3. (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. (Eng. Law) An estate of inheritance supposed to be held
either mediately or immediately from the sovereign, and
absolutely vested in the owner.
Note: All the land in England, except the crown land, is of
this kind. An absolute fee, or fee simple, is land
which a man holds to himself and his heirs forever, who
are called tenants in fee simple. In modern writers, by
fee is usually meant fee simple. A limited fee may be a
qualified or base fee, which ceases with the existence
of certain conditions; or a conditional fee, or fee
tail, which is limited to particular heirs.
--Blackstone.
5. (Amer. Law) An estate of inheritance belonging to the
owner, and transmissible to his heirs, absolutely and
simply, without condition attached to the tenure.
{Fee estate} (Eng. Law), land or tenements held in fee in
consideration or some acknowledgment or service rendered
to the lord.
{Fee farm} (Law), land held of another in fee, in
consideration of an annual rent, without homage, fealty,
or any other service than that mentioned in the feoffment;
an estate in fee simple, subject to a perpetual rent.
--Blackstone.
{Fee farm rent} (Eng. Law), a perpetual rent reserved upon a
conveyance in fee simple.
{Fee fund} (Scot. Law), certain court dues out of which the
clerks and other court officers are paid.
{Fee simple} (Law), an absolute fee; a fee without conditions
or limits.
Buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a
quarter. --Shak.
{Fee tail} (Law), an estate of inheritance, limited and
restrained to some particular heirs. --Burill.