feudatory

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a person holding a fief; a person who owes allegiance and service to a feudal lord
adjective of or pertaining to the relation of a feudal vassal to his lord
adjective owing feudal allegiance to or being subject to a sovereign

From the Latin feudātōrius, from the Mediaeval Latin feudāre (“to enfeoff”), from feudum, feodum.

They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway, Telegraph, and Canal Services; of warrant-officers, sometimes retired and sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah’s army; of captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners, planters, Presidency shopkeepers, and missionaries. — Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Chief of all the Soldiers of Fortune At the close of the fifteenth century, to be exact, in the year 1500, in the town of Painala, in the Province of Coatzacualco, one of the feudatory divisions of the great Aztec empire of Mexico, there was born a young girl who was destined to exercise upon the fortunes of her country an influence as great as it was baleful, as wonderful as it was unfortunate. — South American Fights and Fighters, and Other Tales of Adventure, Cyrus Townsend Brady

vassal, liege, liegeman, liege subject

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