A reward or compensation for services; recompense, either gratuitous, or established by law and claimed of right. It is applied particularly to the reward of professional services; as the fees of lawyers and physicians; the fees of office; clerk’s fees; sheriff's fees; marriage feesMany of these are fixed by law; but gratuities to professional men are also called fees.

Primarily, a loan of land, an estate in trust, granted by a prince or lord, to be held by the grantee on condition of personal service, or other condition; and if the grantee or tenant failed to perform the conditions, the land reverted to the lord or donor, called the landlord, or lend-lord, the lord of the loan. A fee then is any land or tenement held of a superior on certain conditions. It is synonymous with fief and feud. All the land in England, except the crown land, is of this kind. Fees are absolute or limited. 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. Hence in modern times, the term fee or fee simple denotes an estate of inheritance; and in America, where lands are not generally held of a superior, a fee or fee simple is an estate in which the owner has the whole property without any condition annexed to the tenure. A limited fee is an estate limited or clogged with certain conditions; as a qualified or base fee, which ceases with the existence of certain conditions; and a conditional fee, which is limited to particular heirs. In the United States, an estate in fee or fee simple is what is called in English law an allodial estate, an estate held by a person in his own right, and descendible to the heirs in general.

To pay a fee to; to reward. Hence,

To engage in one’s service by advancing a fee or sum of money to; as, to fee a lawyer.

To hire; to bribe.

To keep in hire.