eldertongue

Old English · noun

feoh

Part of speech
noun, neuter
Declension
strong a-stem
IPA
/fe͜ox/
Syllables
fe͜ox (1 syllable)
Modern English
moneyfeelivestockcattle

Meaning

  1. money

    Ēalā ġif iċ hæfde feoh.

    If only I had money.

    c. 995, Ælfric, Extracts on Grammar in English

  2. livestock, cattle

    Ġif þē becume ōðres mannes ġīemelēas feoh on hand, þēah hit sīe þīn fēond, ġecȳþ hit him.

    If you come across someone else's stray cattle, let them know, even if they are your enemy.

    c. 893, Alfred the Great, Doom Book

  3. property

    Ġif Cantwara æniġ in Lundenwīċ fēoh ġebyċġe, hæbbe him tweġen oððe ðrēo unfācne ċeorlas tō ġewitnesse oþþe cyninges wīcġerēfan.

    If any person of Kent buys property in London, he should have two or three trustworthy men or the king's reeve, as a witness.

    Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric

  4. the runic character (/f/)

    byþ frōfur fīra ġehwylċum...

    Wealth is a comfort for all mankind...

    The Old English rune poem

Declension

Declension of feoh
Singular
Nominative feoh
Accusative feoh
Genitive fēos
Dative fēo

All forms (3)

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *fehu, from Proto-Germanic *fehu. Note that feoh must have transferred into the a-stems (and thus lost its -u) before loss of medial *h, or else it would be *fēo. Cognates Germanic cognates include Old Frisian fia (West Frisian fee), Old Saxon fehu (Low German Veeh), Old Dutch fē (Dutch vee), Old High German fihu (German Vieh), Old Norse fé (Swedish fä), Gothic (faihu). The Indo-European root is also the source of Sanskrit पशु (páśu, “cattle”), Latin pecus, Old Armenian ասր (asr, “fleece”) and Lithuanian pēkus (“cattle”).

Descendants

fee

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feoh · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution