This word literally means "(owned) cattle". In traditional societies, the amount of cattle a family owned was a measure of wealth, and eventually the meaning of the word changed to not only stand for livestock, but also for money and property.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Where does the word "fee" come from?
The word "fee", meaning a payment exchanged for something of value, originally comes from the old English word "feoh". It is related to the German word "Vieh", ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European *peku.
This word literally means "(owned) cattle". In traditional societies, the amount of cattle a family owned was a measure of wealth, and eventually the meaning of the word changed to not only stand for livestock, but also for money and property.
This word literally means "(owned) cattle". In traditional societies, the amount of cattle a family owned was a measure of wealth, and eventually the meaning of the word changed to not only stand for livestock, but also for money and property.
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