chiefrie

chiefrie

English

Noun

chiefrie (plural chiefries)

1. (obsolete) A small rent paid to the lord paramount.
   • May 24 1711, Jonathan Swift, The Examiner, Number 42

     There are a thousand instances of this all over England, in reserved rents applied to hospitals, in old chiefries, and even among the clergy themselves, in those payments which, I think, they call a modus.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for chiefrie in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)