enfeoff

1. (transitive, chiefly law, historical) To transfer a fief to, to endow with a fief; to put (a person) in legal possession of a freehold interest.Examples: "Suppose a man bargains to enfeoff me, as in our case here, and he afterwards enfeoffs another, and then he re-enters [i.e. on the first feoffee] and enfeoffs me, and the other ousts me. Now here the action of covenant may not be brought, because he has at last enfeoffed me according to his covenant, and yet the deceit remains upon which an action may be based. Wherefore it does not always follow that where there is a covenant the action of deceit will not lie."; "I have infeffed Richarde Pygot, sarjeaunt of the lawe, John Norton, knyght, John Pygott of Rypon, gentilman, and Sir Thomas Nobull, prest, in lands and tenements within the fraunchese of Rypon, [...]"; "And all this he [Pope Pius V] doth to enfeoff the pope with that fulness of power wherunto he entitleth Peter."Synonyms: feoffhistoricaltransitive

2. (transitive, figuratively) To give up completely; to surrender, to yield.Examples: "[M]ore than one well-wisher who observed Ethelberta from afar feared that it might some day come to be said of her that she had / Enfeoffed herself to popularity: / That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, / They surfeited with honey, and began / To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little / More than a little is by much too much."; "Le Matin will be a newspaper which will not have any political opinions, which will not be enfeoffed to any bank, which will not sell its patronage to any business; it will be a newspaper giving news information, telegraphic, universal and true."Synonyms: cedefigurativelytransitive