Feud¹

Forms: α. (after the early 14th c. almost exclusively Sc.) 3–6 fede, 4 fed, (6 fade), 6–7 fead, feed(e, 4–8 feid(e. β. 6 food(e, feood, fude, 6–7 fuid(e, 6–8 fewd(e, 7 feaud, feode, feude, 7– feud. [The northern ME. fede is a. OF. fede, feide, faide (the phrase fede mortel = ‘deadly feud’ is recorded from 13th c.), ad. OHG. fêhida (whence MHG. vêhede, vêde, mod.G. fehde) = OE. fǽhþ(u enmity:—OTeut. *faihiêâ str. fem., noun of quality or state f. *faiho- adj.: see FOE. In 14–15th c. the word occurs only in Sc. writers, the form being always fede, feide, or something phonetically equivalent. In the 16th c. it was adopted in England (being often expressly spoken of as a northern word), with an unexplained change of form, as food(e, feood, fuid, fewd, whence in 17th c. the form now current. The ordinary statement that the change of form was due to the influence of FEUD sb.² is obviously incorrect; FEUD sb.² is not recorded in our material until half a century after the appearance of the forms foode, fewd, and would not account for them even if it were proved to have existed earlier; moreover, even in the 17th c. it was merely a rare technical word used by writers on the ‘feudal system,’ and its sense is too remote from that of the northern feide for the assumed influence to have operated.

A plausible supposition is that there was an OE. *féod str. fem. (f. féoȝan to hate) corresponding to Goth. fijaþwa as fréod friendship to Goth. frijaþwa. This would in ME. normally become fede, coalescing with the Rom. word of similar sound and meaning; but there may have been a northern Eng. dialect in which the word was pronounced with a ‘rising’ diphthong (cf. mod. Eng. four from OE. féower), and from which the β forms were adopted. In 17th c. the word was occasionally altered into FOEHOOD.]

  † 1.  Active hatred or enmity, hostility, ill-will.

  α.  [Beowulf, 109. Ne ȝefeah he þære fÜhðe.]

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 27454 (Cott.).

c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, Margarete, 476. For þare vertu fed haf I.

c. 1470.  Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, I. 353.

c. 1475.  Rauf Coilȝear, 969. His wyfe wuld he nocht forȝet, for dout of Goddis feid.

1556.  Lauder, Tractate, 13.

1570.  Levins, Manip., 205/34. Feade, odium.

1596.  Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., 92. The fade and inimitie borne towards thair parents to instil in the hartes of their barnes.

1787.  Burns, Tam Samson’s Elegy, x.

  β.  1566.  Painter, Pal. Pleas., I. 1. Two most mighty Italian cities, that before bare eche other moste mortall spite and deadlye foode.

1596.  Spenser, F. Q., IV. i. 26.

1598.  Florio, Aizza, anger, fude, moode.

1631.  Gouge, God’s Arrows, iii. § 3. 187. Among other reasons of this immortall fewde against worshippers of the true God, and professours of the true Religion, this is one of the chiefe, that Truth is a light, that discovereth the evils that lie hid in darknesse.

1705.  Dyet of Poland, 4. A Vice which rankles up to Fewd.

  b.  Sc. Used in contradistinction to favour.

  α.  1530.  Lyndesay, Test. Papyngo, 622.

1560.  Rolland, Seven Sages (1837), 1. Thay tuke na cure of na manis fauour nor feid.

1609.  Skene, Reg. Maj., 137. For feed or favour of anie man.

1637–50.  Row, The History of the Kirk of Scotland (1842), 446. Thus have I … spoken nothing … but the trueth, and that impartiallie, without fead or favour to any, either dead or living.

  β.  1843.  Carlyle, Past & Pr. (1858), 145. Abbot Samson was one of the justest of judges; insisted on understanding the case to the bottom, and then swiftly decided without feud or favour.

  2.  A state of bitter and lasting mutual hostility. (From 16th c. often with allusion to 3.) Phrases: to be at (deadly) feud, † to have (a person) at feud.

  α.  c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., VII. ix. 528.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 201.

a. 1775.  Hobie Noble, ix. in, Child, Ballads (1890), VII. clxxxix. 2/2.

  β.  1583.  Golding, Calvin on Deut. iv. 21. Hee will alwayis bee at deadly foode with mee.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, X. lxxiv. 308. Crowes and Owles are at mortall feaud one with another.

1611.  Bible, Transl. Pref., 10. At that time his Queene and his sonne and heire were at deadly fuide with him.

1614.  Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 603. Of which sort there are diuers at this day in Constantinople, and other where, at deadly feode with the other Iewes, which they now call Rabbinists.

c. 1661.  Argyle’s Will, in Harl. Misc. (1746), VIII. 30/2. He [Argyle] was at Feud with all his Superiors in Scotland.

a. 1715.  Burnet, Own Time (1766), I. 6. And though the wars be over long ago, yet since they have left among us so many seeds of lasting feuds and animosities, which upon every turn are apt to ferment and to break out anew, it will be an useful as well as a pleasant inquiry to look back to the first original of them, and to observe by what degrees and accidents they gathered strength, and at last broke forth into a flame.

1847.  Grote, Greece, II. xlvii. (1862), IV. 189. A resolution much prompted by their ancient feud against Korkyra.

1871.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xvii. 77. A partizan of Tostig would naturally be at feud with Oswulf, as one whom the favour of Tostig’s enemy Morkere had restored to some share of the possessions of his forefathers.

  3.  A state of perpetual hostility between two families, tribes, or individuals, marked by murderous assaults in revenge for some previous insult or injury. More fully deadly feud. Cf. VENDETTA. Phrases as in 2.

  α.  1582–8.  Hist. James VI. (1804), 225. That nathing done, or that hes occurrit during the troubles in the said comon caus, or onie thing depending thairupoun, be comptit as deadlie fead in judgement, or be any acceptatioun againes judge, pairtie, witnes, or utherwayes.

1599.  James I., Βασιλικον Δωρον (1603), 47. Rest not, vntill yee roote out these barbarous feides, that their effects may bee as well smoared downe.

1609.  Skene, Reg. Maj., 46. For the mainteining of weir (or deadlie fead) quhilk he hes with ane other.

a. 1657.  Sir J. Balfour, Ann. Scot. (1824–5), II. 68. His Maiesties sentence and decreitt being read concerning all feeds and matters of blood betuix the Hayes and Gordons.

  β.  1568.  Lambarde, Αρχαιονομία, B iij. Capitales inimicitiæ, Saxonicè fœþh [sic], nomen … a borealibus Anglis hac nostra memoria vsurpatum. Illi verò dictione non ita multum a priori dissidente, fewd, & Deadly fewd appellant.

1601.  Act 43 Eliz., c. 13. Whoesoever shall … take any of her Majestie’s Subjects … or make a praye or spoile of his Persone or Goodes, upon deadlie feude or otherwise.

1613.  Purchas, Pilgrimage, VI. xi. 525. Thus is all inuerted, many Kings, and few Subiects: none now in this vncertainty paying their accustomed tenths, intending rather mutuall feuds and battels, betwixt their seuerall Tribes and kindreds, then common fidelitie and allegiance.

1797.  Tomlins, Law Dict., Deadly feud is a profession of an irreconcileable hatred, till a person is revenged even by the death of his enemy.

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, III. iv.

1845.  H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, I. I. vi. 317. A tribe which was at deadly feud with the Joasmis.

1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 108. Had he even used craft in carrying out an ancestral deadly feud, he might have quoted many precedents in Northumbrian history.

  † 4.  A murderous conspiracy. Obs. rare^–1.

  So OF. feide. This is our only southern instance of the word before 16th c.

c. 1300.  K. Alis., 96.

  5.  A quarrel, contention, bickering.

  α.  c. 1565.  Lindsay of Pitscottie, Chron. Scot. (1728), 6. If it shall chance us to continue any further in this Fead, it shall redound to his Advantage, and to our great Skaith and Shame.

  β.  1662.  Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., I. vi. § 1. We see how small a matter will beget a feud between learned men, especially where prejudice hath lodged before.

1732.  Berkeley, Alciphr., V. § 17. Let any man confider the perpetual feuds between the Patricians and Plebeians, the bloody and inhuman factions of Marius and Sylla, Cinna and Octavius, and the vast havoc of mankind, during the two famous triumvirates.

1754.  Richardson, Grandison (1781), IV. iv. 23. We are all in pieces: We were in the midst of a feud, when you arrived.

1835.  Thirlwall, Greece, I. vii. 279. The domestic feuds which agitated the family of Temenus are said to have continued in the third generation.

1841.  Disraeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 53. The hero had come not to seek feud, nor to provoke insult, but with the free offering of his own life to relieve the sovereign of the Eastern Danes.

  6.  attrib., as, feud-foe. Also, feud-bote, Hist. [ad. OE. fǽhþ-bót], a recompense for engaging in a feud, a compensation for homicide.

[c. 1000.  Laws Ethelred, ix. § 25. And ne þearf æniȝ mynster-munuc ahwar mid rihte fæhð-bote biddan ne fæhð-bote betan.]

1681.  Blount, Glossogr., Feud-boote.

1706.  Phillips (ed. Kersey), Feud-bote, a Recompence for engaging in a Feud or Faction, and the Dammages that happen thereupon.

1721–1800.  in Bailey.

1640.  King & North. Man, 343, in Hazl., E. P. P., IV. 306.