fee
/fiː/
"fee" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fee” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,947 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,947
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An amount charged for a privilege.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fee |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fiː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,947 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fee” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fee is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fiː/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,947 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for fee, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fi", "FL", "FM", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English fee, fe, feh, feoh, from Old English feoh (“cattle, property, wealth, money, payment, tribute, fee”) with contamination from Old French fieu, fief (from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (see feud), from Frankish *fehu (“cattle, … The correct English form is fee, spelled F-E-E.
Definition
- 1An amount charged for a privilege.
- 2An amount charged for professional services.
- 3An additional monetary payment charged for a service or good, especially one that is minor compared to the underlying cost.
- 4An inheritable estate in land, whether absolute and without limitation to potential heirs (fee simple) or with limitations to particular kinds of heirs (fee tail).
- 5A right to the use of a superior's land as a stipend for certain services to be performed, typically military service.
- 6Synonym of fief: the land so held.
- 7An inheritable estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of performance of certain services, typically military service.
- 8Synonym of possession.
- 9Money paid or bestowed; payment; emolument.
- 10A prize or reward. Only used in the set phrase "A finder's fee" in Modern English.
Etymology
From Middle English fee, fe, feh, feoh, from Old English feoh (“cattle, property, wealth, money, payment, tribute, fee”) with contamination from Old French fieu, fief (from Medieval Latin fevum, a variant of feudum (see feud), from Frankish *fehu (“cattle, livestock”); whence fief), both from Proto-Germanic *fehu (“cattle, sheep, livestock, owndom”), from Proto-Indo-European *péḱu (“livestock”). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Fäi (“cattle, livestock”), West Frisian fee (“livestock”), Cimbrian biighe, viighe (“animal, beast”), Dutch vee (“cattle, livestock”), German Viech (“animal, beast”), Vieh (“livestock”), German Low German Veeh (“cattle, livestock, property”), Luxembourgish Véi (“cattle”), Vilamovian fi, fī, fii, fiih (“cattle, livestock”), Yiddish פֿי (fi), פֿיך (fikh, “cattle, livestock”), Danish and Faroese fæ (“cattle, livestock”), Icelandic fé (“assets, livestock, money”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk fe (“cattle, livestock”), Swedish fä (“beast, cattle, dolt”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍉 (faihō), 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌷𐌿 (faihu, “possessions, property; riches, wealth; money”); also Latin pecū (“cattle”), Old Prussian pecku (“cattle”), Armenian ասր (asr, “fleece, wool”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬎 (pasu, “livestock”), Bactrian ποσο (poso, “sheep”), Central Kurdish پەز (pez, “sheep”), Northern Kurdish pez (“sheep”), Ossetian фыс (fys, “sheep”), Talysh pəs, пәс (“sheep”), Sanskrit पशु (paśu, “cattle”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “fee”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-E-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fiː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “fi” - see the side-by-side comparison. fee vs fi
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.