Feud
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A state of long-standing mutual hostility.
"You couldn't call it a feud exactly, but there had always been a chill between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods."
- 2 An estate granted to a vassal by a feudal lord in exchange for service.
- 3 a bitter quarrel between two parties wordnet
- 4 A staged rivalry between wrestlers.
- 5 A combination of kindred to avenge injuries or affronts, done or offered to any of their blood, on the offender and all his race. obsolete
- 1 To carry on a feud. intransitive
"The two men began to feud after one of them got a job promotion and the other thought he was more qualified."
- 2 carry out a feud wordnet
Example
More examples"Our feud traces back to our childhood."
Etymology
Inherited from Northern Middle English fede, feide, from Old French faide, feide, fede, from Proto-West Germanic *faihiþu (“hatred, enmity”) (corresponding to foe + -th), from Proto-Indo-European *peyḱ- (“hostile”). Cognate to Old English fǣhþ, fǣhþu, fǣhþo (“hostility, enmity, violence, revenge, vendetta”), German Fehde, and Dutch vete (“feud”) (directly inherited from Proto-West Germanic) alongside Danish fejde (“feud, enmity, hostility, war”) and Swedish fejd (“feud, controversy, quarrel, strife”) (borrowed from Middle Low German).
From Medieval Latin feudum. Doublet of fee, fief, and feoff.
Related phrases
More for "feud"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.