fee
Americannoun
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a charge or payment for professional services.
a doctor's fee.
- Synonyms:
- honorarium, emolument, salary, stipend
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a sum paid or charged for a privilege.
an admission fee.
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a charge allowed by law for the service of a public officer.
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Law.
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an estate of inheritance in land, either absolute and without limitation to any particular class of heirs fee simple or limited to a particular class of heirs fee tail.
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an inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of the performing of certain services.
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a territory held in fee.
-
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a gratuity; tip.
verb (used with object)
-
to give a fee to.
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Chiefly Scot. to hire; employ.
noun
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a payment asked by professional people or public servants for their services
a doctor's fee
school fees
-
a charge made for a privilege
an entrance fee
-
property law
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an interest in land capable of being inherited See fee simple fee tail
-
the land held in fee
-
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(in feudal Europe) the land granted by a lord to his vassal
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an obsolete word for a gratuity
-
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law (of land) in absolute ownership
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archaic in complete subjection
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verb
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rare to give a fee to
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to hire for a fee
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fee
1250–1300; Middle English < Anglo-French; Old French fie, variant of fief fief. See feudal
Explanation
A fee is the cost of something, or the amount of money charged. You might need to pay a fee when you visit your favorite state park. Clubs, national parks, and gyms all charge a fee to belong or to enter. There is also the fee that a professional charges for services, like the legal fee you pay when you hire an attorney or the fee you pay your dentist to clean your teeth. Fee has an Old French origin in the word fieu, "possession, holding, domain, or payment," from the Medieval Latin feodum, "land whose use is granted in return for service."
Vocabulary lists containing fee
Ratios and Proportional Relationships
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It means second-tier Newcastle would be expected to pay a fee to bring in Kiernan, who has been at Liverpool for five years and signed an extension in 2025.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
Refinancing isn’t free; it typically costs 2% to 5% of the new loan amount, on top of an origination fee and an appraisal, according to the personal-finance website Bankrate.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Ships that used this route had to pay a substantial fee, according to maritime data company Lloyd's List Intelligence, which came up with the nickname.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
Non-interest income is likely to strengthen sequentially, supported by wealth management and fee income, while asset quality is expected to remain stable, he adds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
“Of course you don’t. Not for free. That’s why I’ve set up a fee structure.”
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
Sales of guitarfish, crabs and other species help pay school fees and household expenses.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
Why have the pair been sold for such high fees?
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Company owner Tatiana Kim has promised "not to abandon" the sellers, and she has offered temporary discounts and waived shipment fees, but this has done little to calm fears of further attacks.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
Under the old formula, the government estimates that fees for financial advice have jumped 22% in the past year.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
I told them I had one week to find the fees, figuring that by the time my letter made it to America, and they responded, it would be even less time than that.
From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
In recent years, the nonprofit A Step to Freedom has grown rapidly, collecting millions of dollars from the government to house and feed homeless people coming out of jail in L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Chevron said it would build a gas-fueled power plant in Reeves County, Texas, and feed electricity to a huge data center that Microsoft has planned nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
"Workers are also set to see a renewed squeeze on living standards during the second half of the year as higher energy costs feed through to household bills."
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
"The key advantage of the modified AlphaFold approach is that it allowed us to feed our experimental cross-linking data directly into the structural modeling," explained Kosinski.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
They’d feed off the plants on the riverbank.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
Shelters for Ukrainians feeing the Russian invasion, who do not need to apply for asylum in the Netherlands, are also nearly full, he said.
From Reuters ● Aug. 18, 2022
“It was a helpless feeing sitting there on the sideline not being able to do anything about your position,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 4, 2021
“You can see yourself, so you’re constantly monitoring yourself, feeing self-conscious. I just didn’t feel like I could be as authentic and it took a lot of mental energy, like I was coming into work.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 9, 2021
AG: I have a feeing this won’t be the last time this discussion is held.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2021
“Will you report it? I’m not feeing well.”
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.