(n.) An estate held of a superior on condition of military service; a fee; a feud. See under Benefice, n., 2.
Example Sentences:
(1) Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Tootal has sent his men into remote valleys in north Helmand, previously the undisputed fief of drug dealers and the Taliban.
(2) In Sri Lanka, the son of the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, himself the son of a prominent politician, has won a seat in the family fief of Hambantota and significant numbers of family members fill posts across the country's administration.
Lief
Definition:
(n.) Same as Lif.
(n.) Dear; beloved.
(n.) Pleasing; agreeable; acceptable; preferable.
(adv.) Willing; disposed.
(n.) A dear one; a sweetheart.
(adv.) Gladly; willingly; freely; -- now used only in the phrases, had as lief, and would as lief; as, I had, or would, as lief go as not.
Example Sentences:
(1) Radio 2 listeners recently voted Liege and Lief the most influential folk album ever.
(2) Liege and Lief, released in 1969, had such an air of confidence that it actually made English folk music vaguely hip for a while - no mean feat given the English loathing for their own folk traditions.
(3) Lief motif of this paper is the search for deficits in psychomotor growth in propositi of four and six years old, finding an important relation between neonatal bacterial meningitis and neuropsychological deficits (hyperkinesia, perceptive area impairment, reading-writing disorders, etc.)
(4) The instrument used was the Sexual Knowledge and Attitude Test (SKAT; Lief & Reed, 1972).
(5) The test was originally designed in 1967 by Harold I. Lief, MD and David Reed, PhD, at the Center for the Study of Sex Education in Medicine, Marriage Council of Philadelphia.