Word.ws English Dictionary

fee

/fiː/

fee noun: an amount charged in return for permission to do something.

Noun

fee (plural fees)

  1. An amount charged in return for permission to do something
    • television license fee
  2. An amount charged ancillary to the (occasionally null) base cost of a product or service; an additional charge, nominally for some additional privilege, ability or permission.
    • booking fee, late fee
    • no hidden fees; &nbsp the sticker price is $1 but all the extra fees push the price into triple digits; it costs just 4.99 and there are no fees
  3. An amount charged for something: the base cost of purchasing some thing, service, etc.
    • admission fee, membership fee, drivers' license fee
    • the fee for entry to the zoo is increasing from 50 to 60 dollars
    Synonyms:
    tax
  4. A fixed rate or price charged for (chiefly white-collar) professional services.
    • lawyers' fees, tuition fee, bank fees, legal fees, consulting fee
    • Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30
  5. An inheritable estate in land, whether absolute and without limitation to potential heirs (fee simple) or with limitations to particular kinds of heirs (fee tail).
  6. (historical) A right to the use of a superior's land as a stipend for certain services to be performed, typically military service.
  7. (historical) Synonym of fief: the land so held.
    Synonyms:
    fief
  8. (historical) An inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of performance of certain services, typically military service.
  9. (figuratively, obsolete) Synonym of possession.
    • Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee;
      And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
      Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
      Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.1807, William Wordsworth, “On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic”, in Poems in Two Volumes
    • What doth the poor man's son inherit?
      Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
      A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
      King of two hands, he does his part
      In every useful toil and art;
      A heritage, it seems to me,
      A king might wish to hold in fee.1844, James Russell Lowell, The Heritage
    Synonyms:
    possession
  10. (obsolete) Money paid or bestowed; payment; emolument.
  11. (obsolete) A prize or reward. Only used in the set phrase "A finder's fee" in Modern English.
    • For though sweet love to conquer glorious bee, / Yet is the paine thereof much greater than the fee.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Verb

fee (third-person singular simple present fees, present participle feeing, simple past and past participle feed)

  1. To reward for services performed, or to be performed; to recompense; to hire or keep in hire; hence, to bribe.
    • In vain for Hellebore the patient cries / And fees the doctor; but too late is wise1693, John Dryden, “The Third Satire of Aulus Persius Flaccus”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis
    • There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant feed.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Proper noun capitalized: Fee

Fee

  1. A surname.
  2. A diminutive of the female given name Fiona.
    • Then turning to Fiona, she said, “Fee, I'll only be a minute. […]2023, Zoë Jasko, Hope is Daffodil Bright

fee meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

fee in Hindi

monetary payment charged for professional services
शुल्क śulk, वेतन vetan, फ़ीस fīs

fee in Tamil

கட்டணம், சந்தா

fee in Marathi

fee, payment, charge
शुल्क śulka

fee in Urdu

monetary payment charged for professional services
فِیس fīs
More languagesFewer languages
fee in Bengali
পারিশ্রমিক, খরচ, দেয়ক, ভূসম্পত্তি
fee in Telugu
ఫీజు phīju
fee in Malayalam
ഫീസ്സ്
fee in Kannada
ಪರೀಕ್ಷಾ ಶುಲ್ಕ, ಪ್ರವೇಶಧನ, ಶಿಕ್ಷಣಶುಲ್ಕ, ವೇತನ
fee in Gujarati
ફી phī
fee in Arabic
رَسْم rasm
fee in Thai
ฤชา rʉ́-chaa, ค่า kâa, ภาษี paa-sǐi
fee in Vietnamese
phí, lệ phí
fee in Myanmar
လာဘ် labh, ကြေး kre:, လုပ်ခ luphka.

Examples of fee in a sentence

  • Cronshaw had told him that the facts of life mattered nothing to him who by the power of fancy held in fee the twin realms of space and time.1915, W.S. Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 121:
  • We departed the grounds without seeing Marbonna; and previous to vaulting over the picket, feed our pretty guide, after a fashion of our own.1847, Herman Melville, Omoo:
  • Santon had named, that Delwood presented himself, and handsomely feeing the porter who answered his summons, he asked to see Miss Santon […]1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds:

All 40 example sentences with fee

Synonyms of fee

Forms of fee

Noun
pluralfees
Verb
third-person singular presentfees
present participlefeeing
past participlefeed
pastfeed

Plural of fee: fees

Origin of fee

From Middle English fee, fe, feh, feoh, from Old English feoh (“cattle, property, wealth, money, payment, tribute, fee”) with contamination from Old French fieu, fief (from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (see feud), from Frankish *fehu (“cattle, livestock”); whence fief), both from Proto-Germanic *fehu (“cattle, sheep, livestock, owndom”), from Proto-Indo-European *péḱu (“livestock”). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Fäi (“cattle, livestock”), West Frisian fee (“livestock”), Cimbrian biighe, viighe (“animal, beast”), Dutch vee (“cattle, livestock”), German Viech (“animal, beast”), Vieh (“livestock”), German Low German Veeh (“cattle, livestock, property”), Luxembourgish Véi (“cattle”), Vilamovian fi, fī, fii, fiih (“cattle, livestock”), Yiddish פֿי (fi), פֿיך (fikh, “cattle, livestock”), Danish and Faroese fæ (“cattle, livestock”), Icelandic fé (“assets, livestock, money”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk fe (“cattle, livestock”), Swedish fä (“beast, cattle, dolt”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍉 (faihō), 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐌿 (faihu, “possessions, property; riches, wealth; money”); also Latin pecū (“cattle”), Old Prussian pecku (“cattle”), Armenian ասր (asr, “fleece, wool”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬎...

Words formed from fee

Phrases with fee

Words that rhyme with fee

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fee

What does fee mean?
Fee means an amount charged in return for permission to do something.
What is fee in Hindi?
Fee in Hindi is शुल्क (śulk), वेतन (vetan), फ़ीस (fīs). See Fee meaning in Hindi.
How do you use fee in a sentence?
Cronshaw had told him that the facts of life mattered nothing to him who by the power of fancy held in fee the twin realms of space and time.
What part of speech is fee?
Fee can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce fee?
Fee is pronounced /fiː/.
What is the plural of fee?
The plural of fee is fees.

Words near fee in the dictionary

  1. fedsurrection
  2. fedsurrections
  3. Fedwire
  4. Fedya
  5. Fedzilla
  6. fee
  7. fee fees
  8. fee schedule
  9. fee schedules
  10. fee simple
  11. fee simple absolute in possession

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fee (page history and authors); Fee (page history and authors); fee (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); शुल्क (Marathi) (page history and authors); fee (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fee (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fee (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ફી (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fee.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.