DCHP-1 Online
fief † [< F] 
1 n. Obs. in French Canada, a tract of land granted under conditions of feudal tenure by the French Crown, the seigneurial rights obtaining until 1854.
See also: seigneury (def. 1a)
- 1775 (1905) It is therefore our will and pleasure, that all lands . . . be granted in fief or seigneurie, in like manner as was practiced antecedent to the conquest of the said province . . . omitting, however, the reservation of any judicial powers whatever, the properties of which seigneuries or fiefs shall be and remains vested in us, our heirs and successors.
2 n. a lease to a tract of land; also, the land itself.
- 1807 Labrador Fiefs and Fisheries for sale.
- 1953 On the death of her uncle, who had homesteaded this tract along the Bear River and staked a float-gold claim up the tributary creek, she had come here to live out the two remaining years of the fief and nurse her brother Paul back to health.
- 1775 (1905) It is therefore our will and pleasure, that all lands . . . be granted in fief or seigneurie, in like manner as was practiced antecedent to the conquest of the said province . . . omitting, however, the reservation of any judicial powers whatever, the properties of which seigneuries or fiefs shall be and remains vested in us, our heirs and successors.