Law. [a. AF. fee tailé (the final é being dropped as in some other legal words) = Anglo-L. feudum talliatum; the second word is the pa. pple. of OF. taillier (mod.F. tailler) lit. ‘to cut,’ whence, to fix precisely, limit.]
An estate of inheritance entailed or limited to some particular class of heirs of the person to whom it is granted; a limited fee. Fee-tail expectant: see EXPECTANT a. 3.
[1294. Year-bk. 21–2 Edw. I. (Rolls), 365. Feodum talliatum. Ibid., 641. La ou home feffe un autre en fee pur e nent de fee tayle.]
1495. Act 11 Hen. VII., c. 9 § 2. Londes … not being his owne enheritaunce … in fe taille.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Pernass., IV. ii. (Arb.), 52. Nay thats plaine in Littleton, for if that fee-simple, and the fee taile be put together, it is called hotch-potch.
a. 1618. Raleigh, in Gutch, Coll. Cur. (1781), I. 78. He was seised in his demesn, as of fee-tail.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 27 b. Tenant in Fee Tayle.
1741. T. Robinson, Gavelkind, v. 78. In Fee or Fee-Tail expectant on an Estate for Life or in Tail.
1817. W. Selwyn, Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4), II. 1115. Whether he had an estate in fee, fee-tail, or for life.
1831–2. Act 2–3 Will. IV., c. 80 § 3, in Oxf & Camb. Enactm., 161. Tenants in fee tail.
